Question: I am trying to ask for the Light through the connection with the group, but how exactly should I ask for it?

Answer: Ask for connection. We never know how to ask for the Light, we don’t know how to pray. Every time we turn to the upper, it should be with an accurate request. All a person has to find out is what he wants from the upper. Even if you want the worst things, direct them to the upper. If you direct them to the upper, you begin to gradually correct your request and make it right.

This is called “clarifications,” like the whole ladder of spiritual steps. We begin by wanting to “swallow” everyone. So turn to the upper with that, be consistent, and thanks to the Reforming Light you will understand what is good and everything will change. Don’t think that asking for something already makes you a righteous. But turn to the upper!

This is how we start our life in this world. Look at a baby, how dirty he is when he is born, how he dirties his diapers. But it is said: “The mother will come and clean her son.”

Only do what you can, but persistently and constantly! Then you will advance! The treatment of the upper can be soft and gentle, and it can be strict and tough. But this is the only way changes take place in the lower. The main thing is to go on.
[77931]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/15/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Under what condition can we demand, draw, and reveal the force of the Surrounding Light, the Reforming Light that will connect us in mutual guarantee so that we will reveal the Creator, the spiritual world? How can we demand this force so that it will correct us? What is needed in order to do so?

Answer: Three conditions must be met:

1) the greatness of the goal,
2) despair from one’s own powers,
3) connection with all the friends.

Then, all together, we will reach the feeling called “the payer of many” after having done everything we can in order to connect.

The Light comes and reforms us. What does it mean to reform? It means a true request. It is the Surrounding Light that brings us the true request.

Therefore, according to the wisdom of Kabbalah, there is the clarifying Light called the Light of AB-SAG, and there is the correcting Light. Here, too, everything takes part in two phases.

First, we do everything that we can. We hold conventions, work in a group, and try to connect, thus summoning the Light that clarifies where we actually are. It lets us feel the greatness of the goal.

At the same time, it shows us how low we are, in a state where we don’t take even one step toward it. However, these two points, the greatness of the goal and the despair from our own powers, create two poles between which there are ten Sefirot.

Then, the potential between them activates the Light of correction. This state is called “prayer” since, in a prayer, there are the two points, the greatness of the goal and the recognition of our lowliness. This internal cry brings us the Light of correction that connects these two points through the ten Sefirot and presents us with the whole vessel.
[77627]
From the One Convention in New Jersey 5/12/12, Workshop 3

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Question: The Creator made the evil inclination and the good one. It is written, “I created the evil inclination.” So where does the good inclination come from?

Answer: In reality, there is no good inclination. There is just the evil inclination, which was initially created by the Creator. That is why He informs us that He created the evil inclination. But we correct it with the help of the Torah and turn it into the good inclination.

“Inclination” is desire. The desire remains. But “evil” means that I constantly want to receive for my own sake, and then it harms me because I close myself off in this world like a small animal, living out the years I have to live. This is the most miserable kind of life that is possible in reality.

The good inclination means that we try to unite in the group and see that we are incapable of it, and begin to scream in a common prayer. Then the Light that reforms comes and creates unity between us, and inside of that unity the intention to bestow, the Light becomes revealed. Then, instead of the evil inclination, we have the good one, the same desire, but with the intention to unite with the neighbor.
[77693]
From the 3rd seminar at the New Jersey Convention, 5/12/12

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“Joseph” stands for a point within a person that can grow only when it’s positioned in the Pharaoh’s kingdom (egoistic desire). The tiny spark of Light is called a “ thin candle” (Ner Dakik). The “thin candle” deliberately places itself inside the ego since it grows within the ego and eventually transforms it into bestowal. Thus, Joseph got to Egypt, grew (expanded) there (meaning that his brothers joined him). He represents a spark that develops only inside a human ego.

Egoism is built in a way that it can only value something that it regards as “lucrative” (beneficial). It identifies “profits” only in the type of fulfillment, which is called “women’s work” as opposed to overpowering fulfillment which is called “men’s work.” This is why it’s said that Pharaoh ordered every single Jewish boy killed and left the girls alive.

We give birth to “sons” and then kill them because we have no idea how to work with intentions for the sake of bestowal. Then, they are re-born through our attempts to bestow at least minimally, but our ego yet again kills those efforts. Our intellect recognizes that that we have to bestow and we even manage to generate such intentions, but then again nullify them with our ego.

Our work is to recognize through our desires that we happen to give birth to our “sons” and then destroy them again. We are terrified by what we did, and by the fact that we have nothing else left. After going through torture and realizing that we are incapable of doing anything about the state of affairs, step by step, we acquire a new desire: a new informational Reshimo that is called “Moshe” (Moses).

“Moshe” begins to grow and develop in the Pharaoh’s house. It looks as if he comes from Pharaoh’s side. Pharaoh develops and elevates him, teaches him wisdom, empowers him. After 40 years spent in Pharaoh’s palace, Moshe got everything except that he wasn’t exposed to knowledge about the Creator.

Moshe continued to grow within his desires, which underwent correction and felt that in spite of all his efforts, he cannot convert them into bestowal. At this point gradually his desires acquired the “point of Moshe” meaning the spark that at first was hidden to the extent that it was totally elusive. However, the spark continued to grow. Because of it we carry on giving birth to our “sons” meaning intentions to bestow. We believe that we are able to give and again-and-again we “kill” our efforts.

A person continues to exterminate his “sons” until with a huge regret he starts to realize that all attempts to bestow do not lead anywhere. We give birth to a “son” (intention to bestow), which is in fact our next level that directs us to “depart” from Egypt. This step is a result of our effort in the group work; it stems from our actual deeds. At some point, we really acquire a desire to bestow, but later on we cool down and act egoistically once again. It means that Pharaoh “swallows” our newborn children.
[74972]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/12, Writings of Rabash

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We have to understand that there are only two states in our life, in our reality: a state of darkness, a shade, or a state of Light, connection, the revelation of the good and the benevolent. There is nothing in between. If by hearing about it a person constantly tries to clarify the states he goes through, whether it is a shade or the revelation of the Creator, he will advance by the middle line.

Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 8: “What is the Difference Between the Shade of Kedusha and the Shade of Sitra Achra“: “Instead, all the changes are in the receivers. We must observe two discernments in this shade…”

The first is when a person can still unite with the friends, by overcoming the thoughts about separation and the “blurring” of the senses. He can still overcome the darkness and the concealment; he still understands that he has lost the goal, the way to the Creator.

But on the whole, no one conducts actual self-criticism, “Why do I feel this way? Where is this feeling coming from?” I am not my own psychologist, I simply feel good or bad, like a child. I don’t calculate who sends me these thoughts and these feelings. I “stew” in them, and sink into my body, like a small child.

Yet a person must know and examine himself: “What has summoned my feelings and my thoughts? How can I ascend above myself, above the current state? How can I get out of this swamp by pulling myself by my hair?” A person always looks at himself from the side, “Yes, I am deep in my egoistic desire. Yes, it controls me. True, it doesn’t allow me to connect, it doesn’t let me get up for the lesson, it forces me to disconnect, it makes the daily life with all its dealings seem more important. But I see that I am in this state and that it is opposite from the goal.”

How can I understand and recognize this? When I am still connected to something external, to the group. Here comes the moment of truth, I can check whether I was really connected to the group or not. If I wasn’t connected, I only feel myself: I feel bad, I don’t want anything, etc. Furthermore, I don’t even try to account for this and simply flow along without any special thoughts or desires.

But if I were connected to the group, if I had an alliance with the friends, according to which they have to help me even if I fall and turn in anther direction, the inner connections is kept, I would care about how they see me, and I wouldn’t totally forget about my commitment. They would support me and I would be able to see myself from the side and to clarify my feelings.

Thus I will be divided into two: my own self and my attitude towards the group. Only then, by holding on to the connection with the friends, will I be able to clarify and check myself and by that to start the ascent that follows the descent. Otherwise, I have no chance; I simply fall and leave. So a person can overcome the first type of shade, by justifying the current state and understanding that it was sent to him by the Creator. Then he can call the Creator for help.

Why do I turn to Him? Not in order to feel better, because then I would be asking to annul my evil inclination, which He has created, by adding the Torah as a spice for it. So I should ask for the spice, so that the power of love and bestowal, the power of connection, will come from Above and enable me to advance towards the other line.

“When one still has the ability to overcome the darkness and the concealment that one feels, justify the Creator and pray to the Creator that the Creator will open his eyes to see that all the concealments that one feels come from the Creator.”

When a person is left helpless and sees no way out, when he curses the Creator, the friends and life, he is still looking at himself from the side and suddenly sees a chance for a breakthrough, he can demand that the Creator will save him. Why? Because he does not accept the state when the Creator’s providence seems bad, and he cannot justify Him. A person feels bad because he thinks badly of the good and the benevolent, by being opposite from Him. If life seems bad, it is a sign that I am opposite from the Creator.

We have to build a Masach (screen) and the Returning Light above all the hard situations. Even in the worst situations I must see the Creator as their source, as the Light that is full of all the infinite abundance, but that is broken inside me and turns into a bad feeling, into a shade, into darkness, since my attributes are opposite from the good and the benevolent, opposite from the attribute of bestowal and love.

Thus we advance each time we clarify things correctly. The main thing is to constantly discover this point, “What do I feel? Who is sending me this feeling? Why am I experiencing this feeling?” This is the whole principle of our work and this is what divides humanity into the 1% and the 99%.
[76939]
From the Lesson from Brazil 5/03/12, Shamati #8

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In Mitzvot and transgressions, only the intention is what bestows on our general system, on the revelation of the upper Light, on the ability to resemble the Creator. Of course, it also includes the simple relations of the corporeal world relating to others, the world, humanity, nature, and ecology, since your attitude includes all of your feelings. But the Mitzvot and transgressions exist only in relation to the connection and resemblance or lack of resemblance to the Creator.

This is so at each level, inanimate, vegetative, and animate, whereas the last level, the speaking, is the one that executes all the transgressions. If the desire to receive at the level of speaking that is going to connect to the Creator, to resemble Him, does something that is opposed to connection, then that is called a transgression.

“Israel” who longs for the Creator, is the one who makes the transgressions, whereas the “nations of the world” don’t make transgressions. With them there exists only seven Mitzvot of the sons of Noah. The man who in the meantime does not enter the path of direct ascent to the Creator, which is called, “Israel” (direct to the Creator), also needs to relate kindly to others: to maintain nature, its balance and ecology, to have court houses, provide for justice at the level of humanity, not to eat meat of a still living animal, etc.

But the spiritual Mitzvot and transgressions belong only to the ladder of the spiritual levels, to the right and left lines. Without any feeling of a transgression, you won’t be able to discover your evil inclination and won’t feel your need for the Light that Reforms. Thereby you arrive at the middle line.

Thus it is said,” There is no righteous in the land who hasn’t sinned.” We need to discover all the transgressions of our ego, since without that we won’t have a need for correction. If it is written that “the righteous is as full of Mitzvot as a pomegranate,” this means that in the beginning he discovered within him that same number of transgressions.
[76525]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/02/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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Question: Our task is to transform common people’s routine desires into a plea to the Creator. How do we do that?

Answer: A mother clearly understands why her baby is crying, although the baby does not realize why he cries. The same principle applies here: We have to transform people’s desires, otherwise they won’t match the Light. People cry about troubles in their material lives, but the Light won’t respond to their complaints since He was the one who created them.

It is said: “Come to Pharaoh since I hardened his heart.” It’s the Creator who arranges our troubles and I cannot ask Him to release us from hardships, why then would He have sent them? We have to refer to Him with a different request—our appeal to help us rise above our woes and allow us to choose going through anguishes because only by doing so can we perceive Him. This is how we rise to bestowal beyond receiving.

But we are incapable of achieving this state! We are deeply sunk in egoism; we suffer; we strive to at least rid ourselves of pain as we are unable to sense enjoyment.

We should demand from Him: “Give me the power that allows me to stay above my pain.” We particularly need to be aware of our unwillingness to experience pain and our desire to stay above it: Let my body suffer, but I still can be a step higher than my body; affliction will help me escape my egoistic desires. If suffering vanishes, I will return to the Pharaoh; however, if affliction persists, I will do anything in my power to try to avoid pain.

So, suffering is a necessary prerequisite to make me run away from the Pharaoh, from my egoism. But where do I run? I beg the Creator for deliverance: “Give me a chance to escape and rise above the Pharaoh.” Even though I deal with a tiny part of the common evil, this is the kind of work that I have to do consciously. My job is not to stay a miserable animal, but rather to rise to the level of a human being. I have to realize that the human is higher than the animate level. We should draw a rigid and obvious line of separation between these two states.

• The animal in me suffers. Let it suffer! It’s just my egoism, it’s Pharaoh, with all its pain and darkness that thickens to the degree of the “Egyptian darkness.”
• I am above suffering striving for bestowal.

But where do I get energy to accomplish this? I am so weak that I run away from the slightest pain. The more I advance spiritually, the more sensitive I become, and things that were quite easy for me previously turn out to be unbearable. I cannot tolerate anything at all, even physical trouble.

This is what we work diligently with: We strive to rise above our desires through which we tend to suffer more and more. We find Egyptian darkness in the place where there previously was the Light, but in fact nothing changes except our assessment of events.

This is how “good” Pharaoh becomes “bad”; a bright sunny day turns into unbearable darkness.

Such a state seems exceedingly dreary and gloomy to us; we have to rise above the growing pain and regard suffering as help.

It is said that “Pharaoh brings the sons of Israel to deliverance,” but only on the condition that they really strive to get elevated above their egoism.

They understand that affliction helps them rise above their troubles and separate themselves from egoism since nobody is able to voluntarily approach suffering; instinctively, people retreat from trouble as far away as possible.

So, the Pharaoh helps me by pushing me away, whereas the Creator helps me by hardening the heart of the Pharaoh. My task is to ask the Creator to grant me power to stay above and to regard bestowal more important than receiving.

Otherwise, I will simply be crying out in pain like a person who is not focused on growing and instead sobs about the multiple problems in his life. This is what we see today while the humanity is going through a crisis. People have nowhere to go; they are helpless, and therefore, they don’t want to know anything, “Give us an anti-depressant, alcohol, painkillers, sedatives, drugs” – whatever helps them disconnect from their pain.

We ask the Creator to keep us above our pain so it doesn’t deafen us, but rather, gives us another shape. Our work is to plead: “Give me a chance to bestow and enjoy it.” We shouldn’t bestow for the sake of receiving; we have to learn how to enjoy bestowal. If we do, we’ll go beyond knowledge, and attain bestowal for the sake of bestowal, thus acquiring contentment through a great sense of belonging rather than through fulfilling our egoism. It doesn’t matter if we suffer within our egoistic desires; we enjoy in our sense of belonging to Him. Those are two different kinds of vessels. Similarly, people in this world are proud and enjoy serving those who they consider worthy and great.

This is how we prepare ourselves; others will follow. In fact, an enormous desire to be pleased hides behind the “façade” of our civilization. Our goal is to correct this desire; otherwise, people will continue to suffer uselessly.
[74888]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/9/12, “Questions and Answers Regarding the Brazil Congress”

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No matter what obstacles we encounter along the way, despair, helplessness, different opinions, thoughts and bad egoistic feelings, hate, unpleasantness, indifference, all this gradually accumulates and creates one huge desire that is called the feeling of the “exile in Egypt.” Only by discovering its full size, will we be able to imagine the redemption from its dark depths.

Thus the thought about redemption is added to the feeling of exile and leads us to freedom. The darkness that we feel standing in front of Pharaoh and the escape from this darkness, are all important clarifications within the Light that is revealed to a person who works in order to come out of exile.

The Light makes him feel an increasingly greater darkness and fear of the place he is in, of his own attributes. The main thing here is not to torture ourselves and not to let go, but to understand that we have to go through the full detailed feeling of exile. After all, this is the revelation of the nature of creation, about which it is written: “I have created the evil inclination.” Now our job is only to ask for the Reforming Light.

When this whole situation is clearly clarified in a person’s perception, he understands that the changes do not occur on the physical level, but on the level of the attributes that reveal the relationship between them. There is a general system and all its parts are interconnected in total interdependence. This is how all of creation was created.

But since this connection comes from Above, only the faintest Light is revealed in it, the Light of Nefesh, and then the power of repulsion and hate, the ego, is revealed among all the separated parts and gradually grows. This is already the real creation that was created outside the perfect previous state. The created being was shattered and now we have to work in order to connect him.

Nothing changes in the corporeal world. We have to imagine a picture in which the internal attributes of things change, the relationships, which are totally detached from the corporeal forms of time, motion, and space. This is very helpful.

You should understand that a person has no connection to the Light he is in if he doesn’t yearn to connect with others. Only if he makes an effort to connect with others above the natural feeling of repulsion, does he evoke and draw upon himself the Light that surrounds him.

On the other hand, we may say that a person connects with the Creator only through the general system. To the extent that a person can connect with it, he has contact with the upper Light.

There is no other means to come close to the Creator, to the Light, but through the general system. If a person is partially connected to the system of the souls, then his connection with the Light will not be whole either. The order of the spiritual levels is determined by that. If I connect to others by 20%, then I connect to the Creator by 20% and rise to the height of 20% on the spiritual levels. Everything is measured in relation to the desires. So our work is to intensify the connections among all of humanity, in all of reality, and then we will be able to contact the Creator.
[76824]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/26/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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When I’m dealing with a friend like a worker when we are involved together in dissemination, when we are working on translations or with equipment, or in any kind of work, I supervise him and he is under me. These are our corporeal situations. We understand that we must manage business in this manner.

But the moment we enter the group, there are no differences between us. We only look at our “points in the heart,” only at the yearning of each one for the Creator. And then the revelation of hatred is beneficial, since then I have with what to turn to the Creator for help, since by myself I cannot do this.

On the level of our world, we find ways to get along: We go to a bar together, sit together, clarify the relationship between us. In spirituality, this doesn’t help. We must have the Upper Light.

Thus, as much as the hatred and evil is revealed between us grows, the request for the Upper Light will grow as well. We raise our MAN (prayer, Mayin Nukvin- female waters) to it; we ask for help and yell until it arrives.

It can be that help doesn’t come, since we still don’t have enough recognition of evil. After all it is said, “The world was created either for the complete evil or complete righteous.” First you need to attain the level of “complete evil.” This level is obtained when you long for the goal and see how far away you still are from it. And according to the measure of your longing, you determine the measure of the distance.

There are those who passively belong to the group and don’t participate in the shared connection. They don’t even imagine how powerful this work is, that it’s an ocean of all kinds of attributes and feelings, great pressures, that are impossible to even get close to it, this work repulses people ad nauseam, to the state of being completely powerless.

All of these states bring us gradually to the recognition of evil through the general support that is so important here, through mutual Arvut, when you feel the urgency of the friends, and it obliges you. Then you are able to attain the level of “complete evil” and discover your ego among the others. And this ego won’t be beastly, since the connection needs to be directed to the attainment of the supreme goal and only on it.

We aren’t a corporeal group that wants to assemble together in order to pass time, to play football, or build a mutual business. Our goal is different, to attain the attribute of bestowal and mutual love.

And immediately it is discovered how opposite we are to this. We must feel that this oppositeness draws our full attention. Thus, people who long for the Creator understand the condition that everything that happens to us happens only to discover these states.

And the Light helps us. It is thus structured and descends together with the desires (they are found one against the other), as it bestows on the desires only to the measure that they are able to cope with it, able to bear these feelings of oppositeness. And in spite of all these unpleasant feelings and the great disappointments, are able to yearn for connection and the goal.

There is no other system. It is built on the oppositeness of the two forces of nature: reception and bestowal, the Light and the desire. There is nothing else. It is a practical and scientific system. The only thing that should be taken into account is that we need to be more serious in its realization.
[76207]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/25/12, Lesson 5

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As a result of the process of correct interaction in the group, a person feels more that he is a great sinner and egoist, that he hates others, and he has all kinds of negative desires and thoughts, intrigues, etc.

He reveals this in himself to such an extent that he begins to cry to the Creator to correct him. He starts realizing that only the Creator can correct him because he feels that everything comes from the Creator, and there can be no other source from which this would have resulted, even from its very nature.

He reveals the Creator in the opposite form, as the creator of something bad. But at the same time he reveals that the Creator has created evil in him on purpose in order to force him to turn to Him, and then the Creator corrects him.

Why was it necessary to go this way—to create evil so a person gradually reveals it in himself and turns to the Creator with a plea for correction?
[76699]
From the Vilnius Convention 3/24/2012, Lesson 4

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