Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 254

How Is the Desire for Spirituality Structured During the Time of Preparation?

The desire for spirituality during the time of preparation is divided into two desires: a desire to enjoy spirituality for personal benefit alone, and a very small desire to bring pleasure to the Creator. That is, 99 percent Lo Lishma and one percent Lishma.

Although the Lishma is not through a screen, there is nevertheless something of it. Also, everything is still at the expense of the upper one. The upper one holds us in a state in which we have no screen. If we had a screen, we could actually use the quality of the screen, but during the time of preparation it disappears, returns, and disappears again.

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When a person breaks free from egoism and crosses the Machsom, a period begins in which they receive the upper light to purify Galgalta ve Eynaim, that is, his finest desires: Aviut zero, one, and half of Aviut two, up to the middle of Bina—Shoresh, Aleph, and GAR de-Bet. All this takes place during the period from Passover to Shavuot. What does this mean?

The exodus from Egypt, Passover, is the crossing of the Machsom, the exit from egoism. It includes many transitions and states too. Can you imagine how many intermediate states a person must pass through before it can truly be said that he has passed through something? Afterward, he receives the light and purifies within himself 49 Sefirot up to the 50^th Sefira (the 50 gates of Bina) and enters Bina. Why 50? Is Bina not 40?

The letter “Mem” is a closed letter and symbolizes Bina, because Bina is, as it were, closed like Noah’s Ark. Its form resembles a closed box, a spiritual knot inside which only one quality is concentrated: complete bestowal, complete detachment from oneself. In such a case, a person fears nothing and nothing can influence him; he is above himself, without any connection to himself. Such qualities bring spiritual light to our egoism.

In this case, this box (that is, our soul, all our qualities) is filled with the light of Hassadim. This light of complete bestowal, of complete detachment from oneself is also called Noah’s Ark, because in this form, a person can save himself and is dependent on no one and nothing. He is not afraid of either a hurricane or a flood.

The flood, too, is caused by the forces of Bina (water). But this is water in which all of Malchut and all of Hochma are revealed, the entire light of Hochma and Malchut’s fierce desire. In other words, the flood is like a concentration of external and internal forces: from within, the forces of pure Bina; and from without, all the other forces, which are supposedly also included in Bina.

Bina is a very complex category. It builds the soul in such a way that, from within and from without, the soul is under these waters: from within, under the quality of pure Bina, complete bestowal; and from without, as if under qualities opposite to Bina, which make intense use of Hochma and Malchut. At the same time, the soul becomes stronger and acquires such qualities that it can later raise from within itself a light of Hassadim sufficient even to receive the light of Hochma “Al Menat Lehashpia,” “for the sake of the Creator.”

After all, Bina simply bestows; it wants nothing. But when it is hardened by passing through the flood, it develops such strength that it can even receive the light of Hochma. It is no longer afraid of anything.

When a person acquires the qualities of Bina, all his qualities say: “Naaseh ve-nishma”—that is, “we will accept the Torah and fulfill it”; we will correct egoism. For when the qualities of Bina, GE, are acquired, nothing yet happens to our original qualities; we simply acquire the qualities of Bina. Only afterward do we begin to work with the genuine qualities, with the qualities of Malchut.

Therefore, it is said that when the entire people gather (the person is described as a people, meaning that he consists of all kinds of qualities: men, women, children, and elders, all of these being qualities within a person) at Mount Sinai (Sinai comes from the word “Sinah,” hatred), that is, when hatred arises within him from the side of Bina toward the qualities of Malchut, then everyone, as it were, cries out with one voice: “We agree!” In other words, all the qualities of a person have already been purified and prepared to such an extent that they agree to accept Kabbalah.

Kabbalah is the method of working with egoistic qualities, from the word “Lekabel” (to receive), that is, how to receive the upper light, the light of Hochma, already in order to bestow. Then the state called “the giving of the Torah” arises, and in this way egoism itself is corrected.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/25/26, Sitrin Convention, Sukkot 2003

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Question: If the right and left lines have to be balanced, how can one begin the work with one of them?

Answer: One should begin with the right line. From the state in which I am today, I ask myself: “Who am I and what am I?” If I simply think about myself in this way without any connection to spirituality, then I am merely a desire to receive that wants to enjoy the world surrounding it.

In this way, I can examine myself, be a good psychologist, physiologist, and, ultimately, observe nature while being a part of it. Nature is nature.

If I relate to nature in this way, it can be considered the left line, although it is not even a line yet, but simply nature itself. If I want to relate to everything that exists with understanding and awareness, from a spiritual perspective, then I have to position my “I” so that it has no relation to the Creator or to creation but is located between them, in the middle.

I must be completely neutral, independent of anything, seeing my animal nature with which I previously identified myself as if from the side. I observe: this is what exists, this is how I was born, and these are the qualities I have; this is me, as I imagined myself.

What is “I”? It is a kind of body with its thoughts and different qualities. The Creator gave me my qualities at birth. My thoughts and perceptions were given to me by my family, my environment at school and work, and all the people around me.

Is this me? No, this is not me! So where am I?! The moment I have clarified all this for myself, I want to build my “I.” Let’s build!

How can I build my “I”? After all, everything I have is not me! Everything I will receive from the Creator in the future will also not be me; it will be Him. So where am I?

We do not know what the middle line is. A person’s “I” is a Hisaron, a need that has never existed in reality. Therefore, the need to bestow upon the Creator is a desire that is, as it were, artificial; the Creator did not create it. A person must find it, create it, give birth to it.

I am the one who places himself in the right line. And now I need to decide what I do next. They say that first you must go in the right line. What does the right line mean? To look at whom you are dealing with, and what the nature of the Creator is. To see that He is great, giving, perfect, and wants to give you only reward for all your actions. Examine all these things and acquire faith in this.

What does it mean to acquire faith? It is a feeling as though you already have a sensation of His greatness and importance. As though… but you know that you are doing all this only “as though,” and you are not deceiving yourself. Working with the power of “as though,” you deceive yourself only in that it is as though this already exists. But this deception is accounted for; you know that you are deliberately deceiving yourself.

This is what Rabash writes: it is as though you have a feeling in every organ of your body that you have reached the sensation of the Creator, His importance, greatness, and desire to unite with Him, as though you are already directly in spirituality. And if you have already acquired this sensation, fooled yourself, outsmarted yourself, now go to the left and see what you need to do in the left line.

In the left line, naturally, the opposite state will be revealed to you: who am I, what am I, what is the nature of what the Creator has placed within me, that I do not exist, that I am a complete zero, and so on.

From these two things, we need to make such a connection, such a mixture, that will lead to a prayer. Neither line should prevail, but there must be a single Hisaron, a need, so that this Hisaron is as though this desire is me, and I want to be as perfect as He is. This means that both lines are united together in your prayer: all your deficiencies, the sensation of evil, insignificance from the left, and the sensation of greatness, the knowledge of the goodness of the Creator from the right.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/13/26, Rabash, “What Is Do Not Add and Do Not Take Away in the Work?”

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When a person begins to perceive their egoistic nature as evil, it is not yet a true recognition of evil in relation to the Creator. They simply see themselves, to some extent, as bad in relation to the surrounding light, in relation to others, or in relation to some image that they regard as an example of goodness.

They still do not think about the harm they cause the Creator; they simply see themselves as being this way. Give them a chance to correct themself and calm down, and everything will fall back into place.

Yet a start has been made: the person sees themself as worse and worse, and this is a sign that they are indeed progressing toward the middle line. Of course, they are in despair and feel powerless; they curse everything and doubt whether the path itself is correct because they constantly see themselves as bad. Yet, precisely for this reason, so that they do not flee the battlefield, they need to build a support system, a system that will pull them forward.

Consider the situation in this world: for every sick person in a hospital, there are three or four people caring for him. There is a huge kitchen, enormous stores of medicines, a blood bank, operating rooms, and treatment rooms with all kinds of equipment. A hospital, suppose, with 100 patients may require 500 people of support staff. But once a person recovers, he no longer needs any of that support.

And so we must also build a society in which there will be mechanisms of caring for those who are “sick.” Each of us is sometimes “sick.” So, these support systems should take care of him, support him, and do everything necessary for him.

I remember being in states in which I could not move, not even go out to the store to buy something. That is what friends are for. Working for the Creator is not an easy path.

A person who is helped by the friends he himself has acquired is, in a sense, acting together with them. After all, he himself paid for and built this “hospital,” and he himself works there when he is healthy. And when he is sick, they take care of him as well.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/26, Rabash, “One Should Always Sell Everything He Has and Marry a Wise Disciple’s Daughter”

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In the state in which a person is already beyond the Machsom, there are several intermediate, semi-egoistic stages. After the people, led by Moses, crossed the Red Sea, they remained for another three days at Mount Sinai. The word “mountain” (Har) comes from “Hirurim” (doubts) that arise in a person.

A person finds themselves with all these doubts and cannot imagine how to adapt to what they see. Where could such states, forces, desires, and inner pressure to unite with the Creator come from?

Ultimately, only one of their points rise to this mountain, above all these doubts and above all their still-egoistic desires. Only there, above them, do they make contact with the Creator. In this way, a person gradually begins asking the Creator to show them how He relates to people. The Creator’s attitude toward people is precisely the Creator’s commandments; therefore, by fulfilling them, we become similar to Him.

The commandments are the correct attitude from within one’s egoism toward the whole of creation. I ask the Creator as though I were already standing beside Him. I am an entirely independent point having already emerged from myself. Before the Machsom, I was not independent; I was immersed in egoism and under its control. Now, having crossed the Machsom, I am an independent point, free from egoistic influences over me. Therefore, I begin asking the Creator: “Show me how You relate to them.”

“Them” means all of humanity, which constitutes a completely homogeneous mass, one Kli consisting of 620 desires. I try to relate to each of these desires as the Creator does. Fulfilling the commandment lies in my correct attitude toward their desires, adopting each one as my own and altruistically desiring its fulfillment.

In this way, I gradually fulfill the 613 commandments. I incorporate every one of these desires within myself and fulfill it so that through myself I can fill all the souls.

This enables me to connect and unite with them and form my enormous Kli, earned through my own efforts, consisting of all the souls and called Adam, human. Thus, to the extent that I incorporate these desires within myself and fulfill them through myself, I become similar to the Creator and unite with Him. This state is my personal Gmar Tikkun (final correction).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot on 9/29/26

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The group is a small model of the common soul, Adam, in which we must relate to one another as the Creator relates to all creations. It consists of people who understand my aspirations, and I work together with them, supported by them.

The friends raise the importance of our common goal for me, strengthen me, support me, and understand my aspirations. I learn from them, they learn from me, and we mutually work in the same direction. It is easier, more convenient, more reliable, and more enjoyable for us because of this. In other words, the group helps me in everything.

And if suddenly all the possibilities available to a person were taken away from me, it would turn out that besides the group that supports me, directs me, and presents me with the next level of values that become important and desirable for me to attain, I need nothing else. The group determines the goal and the image of the Creator to which I must become similar at every moment of my being within it.

Every particle of the common soul is under the dominion of all the other particles, whether that dominion is impure or pure. Since the law is the same for all worlds, a person, whether they want it or not, is nevertheless under the influence of society.

Therefore, the choice of the group, the choice of the surrounding society, ultimately constitutes one’s only act of freewill and determines one’s entire path.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot, 9/28/26

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 253

What Does a Person Go Through Before the Barrier?

The states we go through before the barrier are called the “time of preparation,” the beginning of Lishma. There is no screen to speak of yet, but we already begin to relate to our state from the point in the heart. What does it mean to enter the time of preparation? For thousands of years, we reincarnate in bodies of this world, and suddenly we receive an awakening from above. This is called “the point in the heart entering us.” It is the point in the heart being revealed in us.

In addition to the heart, which is a desire for all kinds of pleasures in this world, we have a desire to enjoy spirituality. Although it is an egoistic desire for spirituality, dressed in the intention to receive, it already belongs to spirituality. Within it there is a certain sensation of the surrounding light that gives the grace of Kedusha (holiness), which means that there is something of the intention to bestow. We are clueless as to what bestowal means, but this gives us a sense of truth and falsehood.

Beforehand, we viewed the world only from our heart and thought about how to grab and enjoy. Now we sometimes look from within our heart and sometimes from within the point in the heart. We are thrown from one to the other, and this brings changes of states and moods. When we look from within the point in the heart, we begin to criticize ourselves and think that we are beasts, and from the point in the heart we begin to understand a little of what it means to be human.

But this is still not birth. Spiritual birth begins with the actual acquisition of a screen, from root coarseness (Aviut de Shoresh). However, for those who study Kabbalah, preparation for birth begins. Even during the time of preparation there are many stages that cannot be clearly divided in succession. This is not yet birth; it is preparation.

What is birth? Even birth that comes after the barrier is not yet birth; it is only the “entrance of the seed into the womb of Ima Ilaa (Upper Mother),” called the “three days of absorption,” and so on. The “nine months of pregnancy” begins, a state in which we feel that we are in the Creator’s world and begin to acquire a screen in order to annul ourselves toward it, so that everything we receive will be in order to bestow and will not touch our will to receive.

Like in spirituality, the states preceding it, which correspond to spirituality, are also given such names. In any case, these are states in the point in the heart’s development that receive a screen at the barrier.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator – 1” (5.12.2004)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator – 1”

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Kabbalists have prayers that depict imperfect states using words that seem to be addressed to the Creator to someone who understands nothing. But one who understands sees from this text which of his inner desires and inclinations he should direct to the Creator. The prayer is composed in such a language that, in principle, anyone can adapt it to himself, depending on the level he is in: from zero to the level of the final correction.

Kabbalists have always used the language that Moses received and used to write the Torah, not only to specifically address those who study Kabbalah, but also to address everyone regardless of their spiritual level. If you delve into the prayers, you can see all the interactions and all the levels of every human desire toward the light, toward the Creator.

Moses described everything related to receiving the Torah and the ascent of the soul to Bina. This is his task.

Moses is the force that raises all person’s desires from Malchut to Bina, up to entering the Land of Israel. And afterward the corrections take place without him

Since the quality of “Moses” pulls Malchut to the level of Bina, his mission ends at this point, and he dies. He dies in Jordan, looking from afar at Israel, as it is said in the Torah: “He went up Mount Nebo and died there on the 5^th of Adar.” He was born on the 5^th of Adar and died on the 5^th of Adar. All of this is according to the spiritual roots…

It is not about the person Moses, but about the quality. I cannot imagine a person who would do this, it does not form any kind of picture in me at all. But it can also be understood that way, it does not matter.

Every spiritual root must touch our world, clothe itself in matter. Therefore, everything that should happen in the spiritual world must happen in this world with all of us. As of today, everything has been realized except Purim, except Gmar Tikkun (the final correction).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot, 9/25/26

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Question: Should the critical level of the group be such that everyone is ready to give their surrounding light to anyone in the group?

Answer: Yes. What does this mean? I understand absolutely clearly that my spiritual well-being, my advancement, my spiritual degree, my life, and my destiny are in the hands of the group. If I feel that I am in their hands, that means that I have surrendered myself to them.

In reality, I am indeed in this state; I only need to understand that this is so and act accordingly. Therefore, I do not set any conditions, but simply reach the level at which I see that I am in their hands, that I am within them, and then agree for it to be so.

I agree to be dependent on others, and even if there were no such spiritual mutual guarantee, even if I did not have to be dependent, I want it to be so. This means that I approve of the structure of the Creator’s action and desire to be in it. This is precisely what I choose as the only correct and good thing.

In that case, I am considered to have mastered this spiritual degree, and out of all possible states, I choose precisely what takes place on it. I completely agree to be at the disposal of the friends, to be in the common Kli.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson for the holiday of Sukkot, 9/28/26

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