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Shamati, Article #92

Lesson by Rav Michael Laitman, Bnei Baruch, Israel

October 27, 2006

We are reading in the book Shamati, Article #92, Explaining the Discernment of Luck.

“Luck” is something that is above reasoning. Thus, even though it was reasonable that it would be such and such, luck made him succeed with his actions. Reasoning refers to cause and consequence, meaning that a cause makes the result come out as it does. But above reasoning, when the initial cause is not the cause of the consequence, this is called “above reasoning.” We refer to it as luck causing the result.

We only see a very small part of reality. Around us there is a huge system of forces called the world of Ein Sof (infinity). This net of forces contains the whole of reality but we feel and perceive only a small part of it. We don’t feel the net of forces and we don’t perceive it in our senses at all.

According to what we see in reality, we have some knowledge, sciences that state it should be one way or another. The intellect and brain only evolve according and to the extent that we sense. Our sensation evolves to the extent that the Reshimot (reminiscence, pl.) and questions open in us. We investigate reality from within our desires and our questions. Along with it our brain evolves so as to know what there is around us.

Yet all of that is very limited. Ultimately the Reshimot are constantly developing and comes out of concealment to revelation from within us. We, according to these Reshimot, as we evolve, see that the world seemingly becomes more complex and complicated and has more powers and increased number of parts that were previously hidden from us.

As this appears to us each time, we want to know precisely what it is, its order, the logical order, the realistic and rational cause and consequence in what happens, and how we can, to the extent that we see and feel, determine a certain order and affect it for our own benefit, for whatever we think is for our own benefit.

It turns out that the lack of knowledge about the system that was hidden from us brings us to a state where it doesn’t come out exactly as we calculated, not exactly what we thought the cause and consequence was. We act like children; we do something and expect a result. It is clear to us that it should come out this way but we don’t know the systems before us and all kinds of desires, incidences and forces and someone who may influence us. So, we come up with something we didn’t expect. We call these things miracles and such like expressions.

We shouldn’t think that the Upper Guidance is by chance and when the Upper Force feels like changing something, It changes it. It is written, “I HaVaYaH do not change.” The system of forces is constant. The Upper Light is in complete rest and intends to bring the whole of humanity, all the souls to the End of Correction, to complete equivalence with Him so they will bestow like Him, that they will be awarded the highest degree in reality which is perfection and eternity.

The system of bestowal from Above, the guidance from Above, private and general is not sensed in us. That’s why we use words like luck, it worked out, or it didn’t work out. This means that I didn’t identify another system that affected my efforts and I didn’t get the result that I wanted, whether I think as though it is for the good or for the bad.

Actually, it’s all for the better because on any occasion where I make an effort, I get a result that either feels good or bad but it is certain that it promotes me towards that goal which this whole system brings me to. So, whether I am right or wrong, I will always move forward toward the goal. But with respect to our sensations and expectations, when say that with our limited expectations and understandings we want it to happen and it happens, then we say, I had luck, otherwise there was no luck

Of course, the wisdom of Kabbalah opens up a person’s tools of perception and next to them, the brain. This is so he can see, according to all the Reshimot that evolve in him, the whole of reality. It teaches a person how to realize the Reshimot completely, realistically and accurately so he will always be one who can calculate in: “I labored and found.” That he would actually aim at the right results and he is certain to find them. Because the problem is that if the result is not the same as the expectation, it’s because he intended a result that didn’t coincide with the right calculation of the system, the Creator. And if there’s a deviation he would say, “There is no luck” or something to that effect.

Whereas, if my directions and expectations are exactly in the direction of the goal, that the Creator predetermined that all the creatures must reach, then I am certain to always find myself progressing towards it, because it is that only towards which I am progressing. I will find myself progressing in a good, comfortable and pleasant state. Whereas, if each time I do not expect that same goal, the same end state like the Creator does, then of course, I will still be in that advancing state but it’ll be sensed in me as bad, unpleasant and undesirable.

This is the entire difference between what happens and what we feel. It’s a huge difference. Because in truth, even now we are in the most advanced states toward the goal. But those advanced states can be sensed in us as good states where we are happy about everything that comes to us and expect it. It is then that we are called righteous because we justify what the Creator has prepared for us and how He helped and led us on that path towards the goal of creation. Or if we don’t expect it, we don’t want it and it does not coincide with our desires, these states seem bad to us, even worse, intolerable.

So, it turns out that the path is the same path of progress; that states are defined because the Reshimot are already in every one because the soul has descended down from Ein Sof to this world. So, by the same degrees, we should now come up from this world to Ein Sof but everything depends on the preparation. If I want to progress from state to state, as it should be in spirituality, and if I prepare myself, then I feel my steps and results are good. I praise the Upper Force for having prepared everything for me, not at Gmar Tikkun (the end of correction) when maybe there it will be good for me, but even in this world.

What does this mean? That in every state that I attain, called this world, I feel good. This is called “you are happy and feel good in this world and you will feel good in the next world.” This means that in the next degree as well, I am certain that it will be even better for me than it is now. So, it only depends on one’s preparation.

Because again, the states are all the same states but it depends on how we feel them, how we understand them and how we accept them. This depends on the extent to which a person understands that these states are good and it all depends on one’s own correction. To the extent that one’s qualities in every state equalize with the state in which he is integrated and then according to the measure of the equivalence between him and the degree, he would feel great, good, comfort and delight. But if he doesn’t equalize with his qualities with the degree that he has now entered, this state, this event he has now entered, then it’s felt in him as torment, pain, diseases, as shames, blows of all kinds even death. It all depends on the preparation.

That’s why those who know that they have a clear cause and consequence order before them and want to follow that order in a good way for themselves begin to study the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is in order to know how to prepare himself for this obligatory order that one experiences. And that’s why those who come to study are those who have already experienced many blows, suffered a lot now ask, “What is the meaning of our life?” They begin to somehow study because they want to somehow understand what’s happening to them. Why the cause and consequence? Why the progress? Why all the steps they take in life are all bad? Over the months, as they continue to study and understand the arrangements, an attitude to the leadership evolves in them. When they begin to accept that the leadership is probably good and it is worthwhile equalizing with it, and it is so as to bestow. It means that a person too should transcend his ego and progress toward bestowal and then his nature will be like the nature of those degrees that he has to receive, and then he will feel in them good and comfortable.

“I HaVaYaH do not change.” Every degree and every state progressed to will require more bestowal, more actions of bestowal, greater detachment from himself and from his ego. And if a person doesn’t attach to his internal correction greater detachment from the ego (for the ego in the meantime is also evolving in each degree so as to rise higher and higher above it), if he has no concern about that, then he is lacking in equivalence of form which is contrary to the degrees and states he is integrated in. He is then in a process of pain and troubles that increase.

And from Lo Lishma (not for Her name) one comes to Lishma (for Her name) meaning, he begins to see that he doesn’t have a choice and that he has suffered enough. He has to start correcting himself, to want to bestow and from that moment on when he decides that, he looks to how to do it.

He is then willing to be integrated in the group to receive the Light that Reforms from the study and that’s how it begins to affect him and with every state that comes he begins to consider and regard it as more progressive toward the goal, whatever happens. Then he begins to feel these states as good, that they contain a power that runs everything, the Upper Force, the Upper Light, which is good to him and benevolent.

Question: In my state, how do I know if it comes from effort or from lack of equivalence of form?

Your question is how does one feel good? Actually what you are saying is that to feel good there are two ways. Either I will be as I am, namely according to my desire, and then I’ll feel good. Or let us say, I can get drunk or take some drugs. Then, even if the situation is bad, I don’t feel it, I feel good. Or I really do change so that in the state I am in, it will seem good to me.

So, there are several options to accept the state as good but the state is defined, I don’t build it. I can only bring myself in several ways to feel it as good. Either, if I don’t change but wait for the state to change, but it doesn’t happen, we see that in life. Then I can either turn to drugs or other means so as to not feel how reallyopposite or contradictory it is to what I want. Or, since I don’t have a choice, after many blows and so on, I decide that I should probably look at life differently and change myself.

So it takes a long while until a person decides that. When he begins to change himself, he begins to see that although it’s hard to change himself, it’s not that he is just accepting the state as nice, pleasant and good. But by changing himself, not only just his sensation that’s changed where instead of suffering he feels some kind of rest, but the state according to the size of his effort, has expanded and contains within it another dimension called the Upper World, the spiritual world.

Because that person changed himself to an additional sensation, an additional understanding through his efforts, where he was worked on changing himself, he changed himself to perceive another dimension which he did not sense before. Through his effort he suddenly begins to perceive the reasons for his state, the forces that operate. He equalizes with these forces and he’s integrated with them and really becomes one who sustains the state and arranges it, performs and changes. He begins to be like the force of the Creator, the creator of the state.

In the pains that we feel in lack of equivalence with the states that we constantly encounter, they have a very accurate goal. In the end, they operate on our desires with the bad sensation and they aim each and every desire in us so that we correct it and in which direction and to what extent.The order of powers, the lack of equivalence and identification between the desirable and existing, work on a person in such a way that he evolves only in the spiritual direction, and not the corporeal one.

If one still wants to improve his state through corporeal correction, then he gets a blow that’s twice as hard. As it is written, “A person does not die with half his desire in his hand.” If you want to fill your vessels in the ordinary way and not by equalizing with the state that came to you, then you get a Kli (vessel) that’s twice as empty. And you doubly feel the emptiness and pains because the Kli needs to grow every time.

Question: If a situation is felt as bad, does it come because I deviated from the direction and it wants bring me back or is it because it is the recognition of evil?

No, the recognition of evil depends on you. Your state in your sensation each time stems from a comparison between your internal and the external states. Around you there are forces which all in all are called degree of the world you’re in. From our state to Ein Sof there are defined states that you have to go through from state to state.

A state means that there are forces that operate on you from the outside. If you equalize with these forces with your own system, you feel good and comfortable, you feel Ein Sof, no limitations. Ein Sof is no limitation, no border, no end. They operate on you and you with respect to them as two ideal systems that equalize with each other. With every state that changes, it feels as if you’re in Ein Sof but that Ein Sof that has no limit and lack of anything bad is greater and greater. If you do not equalize with these external conditions, you feel the gap between what you are and that degree, these forces are that appear before you. Normally they seem to you like suffering.

If they are still in the first small beginning degrees, with respect to your small animalistic ego, it’s not that bad. Everyone is like that, even babies evolve out of pain, and humanity too is evolving out of pain.

But when a person begins to come to a point where he must equalize with these degrees, namely has had enough being small, and all of humanity has now come to that state where a person asks, “What’s the meaning of my life?” we have to get an answer for it. And this is why we are publicizing the wisdom of Kabbalah so as to actualize it.

However, from this moment onward, the individual as well as humanity, who are exposed to it; who completed their egoistic evolution in which they had to accumulate negative impressions to create in them the question “What is the meaning of my life? Why am I suffering?” we should begin to answer it.

The answer is not to the question why I am suffering. He begins to check and see that he’s suffering because of the non-equivalence. He gets an explanation about it and begins to somehow correct it. It is afterwards that the questions start, “Whom should I bestow on?” Because he begins to see these degrees as bestowal and then he begins to ask, “All right, I want to be like those degrees but with respect to whom?” Then he begins to find the Upper Force. Baal HaSulam asked that question too, “What’s the meaning of my life?” Or more precisely, “Whom do I please?” That’s the question he arrived at.

Question: We should constantly be greatly concerned that every moment we are making the right effort and right intention. Because any other act delays a person in the process and that’s very important because it brings him pains and all kinds of things.

That is why from the moment a person understands a little bit that it’s all up to him how he changes his attitude to the world, to the degree, to the state that operates on him so he will be in accordance with it. From that moment on, he should try to find whatever means he can, whatever support that can help him change himself. He will not change the world, those degrees and the forces that operate on him. They will constantly present themselves to him in such a way that is according to their ideal plan. If he constantly matches up to them, he will quickly progress toward Gmar Tikkun, toward Ein Sof.

In other words, they constantly change.And if he does not go along with them, then they already work in higher degrees and he is still here, and the gap is felt where “he would be better off dead than alive.”

Question: With that situation we are talking about, if a person is not in the environment, would he feel the pain less or not at all?

Of course, if a person doesn’t come to a group of Kabbalists and is integrated in some other society, then he may feel less pain. This is because there are other possibilities to not feel pain like taking drugs, getting drunk, forgetting about the state, becoming integrated in the opinion of society, so it would lower his mind and sensitivity, and for the time being he would feel good. A person is falling off the roof and the neighbor sticks his head out the window and asks, “What’s the matter with you?” And he answers as he falls “for the time being good.”

It’s the same here, you can get into this spin deliberately and you can kind of block yourself from feeling the state and being aware. I spoke to some Israelis in one of my lecture tours in America, and their most common answer to the question “Why are you here?” was, “For the time being we are enjoying ourselves and we forget about the troubles felt in Israel. It’s good for the time being, I feel comfortable, detached from the problems that I was in there, fine. What happens afterwards? I hope, I will come out of your lecture and forget about it.”

It’s true that it’s an infantile behavior. They’re afraid, they shut it out because if they don’t see it, it doesn’t exist. It’s a common behavior with children if they’re afraid of something. But increasing problems age people so even though they would want to, they won’t be able to. It is not possible Otherwise, everyone would turn to drugs and not despair and all sorts of other problems. Rather they would settle for blinding themselves.

It is known that all bestowals come from the Light of Hochma (Wisdom). And when Hochma shines, it is called “left line” and “darkness.” The abundance is blocked, and this is called “ice.”

Whenthe influence of the Creator, called Light of Wisdom appears to the creature directly, i.e., is received within its desire, and the creature wants to discover the desire by itself, in the way the pleasure, the Light of Wisdom appeared from Above, then within the desire appears the darkness. Darkness is diseases, pain, blows, up to death. The Creator’s bestowal in its direct form is felt in the creature not as bestowal, but as the greatest possible pain which cannot be described in all kinds of ways, everything we have in life. And it all comes from His bestowal, from kindness, so to speak.

This is called “merit” because he is rewarded. That means that the reason that causes the Light of Wisdom is called “merit,” which is cause and effect.But “sons, life, and nourishment do not depend on man, but on luck.” This means that Hochma is diminished specifically through the middle line, and shines precisely through the diminution, called Masach de Hirik. It follows that it does not shine with cause and consequence, meaning that Hochma shines through the left line, but precisely through the diminution. This is called “above reasoning,” and this is “luck.”

This means that the Light of Wisdom is what brings us all the fulfillments beginning with the tiny toys of a person up to worlds and endless fulfillments in quality and quantity at levels we can’t even imagine. All of that comes from the Light of Wisdom. We cannot receive those fulfillments directly but in the middle line.

What’s the middle line? When the Light of Wisdom comes, when a person restricts his desire and does not want to use it directly because he previously learned that it’s impossible to receive the Light of Wisdom directly, it brings darkness. These sensations, these blows, taught him to shut himself off to make a Tzimtzum (restriction). Beyond Tzimtzum he also learns that he can feel, not even the Light of Wisdom but to feel like the source of the Light of Wisdom, which is even higher like the Creator by beginning to bestow as the Creator bestows Light of Wisdom.

Then a person begins to use his vessels of reception in which he receives the Light of Wisdom to the extent that he can feel that by that he is bestowing to the Creator. Of course he enjoys the Light of Wisdom, otherwise what would he bestow to the Creator? The Creator wants him to receive, so he receives. At the same time he begins to enjoy from the way the Creator bestows and enjoys giving to a person, and a person too enjoys receiving and enjoys bestowing on the Creator.

It turns out that by that a person doesn’t just enjoy the Light of Wisdom but enjoys the Creator’s status that he becomes like Him. This is by restricting his desire first and then calculating how much he can receive to enjoy, but that this pleasure will be with the intention to cause contentment to the Creator. It is then that he receives not the Light of Wisdom but some of it, with the intention to bestow contentment upon the Creator and this is called Masach of Hirik. It’s a concept we’ll study later as to how to work in the three lines.

This work doesn’t just give a person the ability to receive the Light of Wisdom. This is the only way to enjoy without that pleasure disappearing or being just fleeting, without any blows following it. Rather this pleasure adds another pleasure to me, which is much, much greater than that, which is that I am like the source of that pleasure and this with respect to the Creator.

There is another addition here, another factor. Because the Kli of the Creator, the Creator’s desire is infinite, we have no words for it, the Creator’s desire, how much He wants to benefit His creations. A person discovers that desire as the vessel to which he bestows. And accordingly, he feels pleasure to the extent to which he fills that Kli and he understands and attains that status.

This means that the Masach of Hirik and the middle line, that limitation that a person puts on himself, at the end of the day helps him reach an unlimited state, not only in his own Kelim but in the Kelim of the Creator, in the Creator’s desire. This is another result here that we don’t even dream about, beyond our Kelim, beyond our nature, beyond our place of birth, beyond our creation.

Question: We said that after Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction) it’s impossible to receive Light of Wisdom. How do we come to feel Light of Wisdom?

After Tzimtzum Aleph we can’t receive Light of Wisdom because Tzimtzum means that we restrict our desires. So, how can we receive if we restricted our desire? After we restrict our desire and the Light doesn’t enter the desire, a person begins to think, “But in this way it’s neither for me and nor for Him. So what does that act give me? I am not receiving, I am not against the Creator by my nature, but I am against His desire to please me. How can I give Him the possibility to please me?” So, he begins to open up his desire but now, it’s with the thought that by that, he allows the Creator to be pleased.

Just as you eat your mother’s cereal, you give her pleasure by that. So, you don’t fill your previous Kelim by wanting cereal, you have to have those Kelim too. You open them by adding the mother’s desire to it who wants to give to you. It is from this act that you begin to feel how she enjoys meaning, you begin to acquire her vessels of bestowal, AHPde Bina and that elevates you to the degree of Keter, to the degree of the Creator.

This means that you have in this round, where a person restricts himself and begins to acquire the manner of bestowal, where he doesn’t just not receive, being ashamed and courteous towards the Creator as we learn with the example with the guest and the host. It is as though I too am a nice person compared to my Host, He is for me, I am for Him and each one brings contentment to the other. This is certainly not the intention.

The intention is to elevate the creature to the degree of the Creator. So it would take his nature from “the existence from absence” and rise to the level that existed before it was created to the actual degree of the Creator. There’re things here that we still can’t express, we don’t have the words for it. Because our vocabulary is only from Bina de Atzilut and here, we are talking about states that are above it, so, we don’t have discernments for it. Within us there are no such desires and sensations in which we can describe that state, they are just words.

Question: In this article it says that it all depends on luck. And it says in the sources that Israel is above zodiac signs. All the sources go against luck: astrology, cards, etc. So what’s the connection between this and the luck that we commonly understand as luck?

We talked about how we are operated by the Upper Force, which split itself into many degrees with respect to us just as I am with respect to my little boy. I appear to him as greater and more serious or more complex with my behavior and my demands. This is so as to encourage him to grow which is also the nature of the degrees.

We say that there is a state of Ein Sof, and below Ein Sof, there are 125 degrees, that is, five words times five Partzufim, times five Sefirot in each of them (See Drawing No.1). The Upper Light influences us behind those 125 degrees. The state below 125 degrees is called this world.

125 degrees is 125 concealments. If the Light works in 124degrees, it's called Malchutde Assiya, then Yesodde Assiya etc. What’s the difference between them? The Upper Light appears to me more each time and, by correcting myself in congruence with it so we are equal, I feel myself more advanced, receiving more according to the Masach de Hirik, as Baal HaSulam says.

The Upper Light, the Bestower (the right line), reaches me. Simultaneously, the nature of the creature, the receiver (the left line) is revealed. I make a Tzimtzum on that nature, and I want to receive the strength for correction. Then according to the strength that I can receive for correction, I use my desire and build my bestowal. This is called the middle line. (See Drawing No.1)

That is how it is in every degree. If I don’t equalize myself with the degrees and I find myself in a state which is against them, then as a result, I feel more blows in all kinds of ways affecting all my nature: diseases, wars, shame, blows, bankruptcy, a thousand and one things.

I feel myself against it in everything I can even picture is bad. That’s called being unlucky. It is also luck, but on the opposite, it's something I didn’t expect and I don’t want it.

Question:The diseases and disasters that you wrote about, will they come anyway or do we just have to relate to them differently?

No, the Upper Light can be the potion of life and potion of death. If you go along with it, receive it as you should, clothed h the Light of Hassadim (Light of Mercy); if you receive it as it does, in bestowal, then you feel great. If you receive it opposite from its nature, then you feel the opposite, you feel pain. Of course, it’s the same Upper Light, the same Creator, He doesn’t change, “I HaVaYaH does not change” and “There is none else beside Him."

But according to your state, it seems to you either cruel and terrible or good and benevolent. If we say, “If I am not for me who is for me?”, then we are talking about our Tikkun (correction). It is not about what He bestows on me, but about our correction, about where my free choice is. That’s it for the time being. Afterwards, there is the question “Is He there, in my free choice, sitting there or not, and changing things or not?” That’s a degree that we still have to see and understand where I disappear or whether I do exist..

Question: The pains that a person receives as to their power and form, are they only a function of the level of the evolution of his soul or connected to the root of his soul too?

Of course, each soul according to its root has a different composition of qualities and each feels the pains differently. For you the pains are that you will, God forbid, go bankrupt and for me the pains means that the neighbors will talk badly about me. And you don’t care what the neighbors say, you are not sensitive to that, you’re sensitive to your business. While I am not sensitive to my business, I don’t care about business but I care about the neighbor’s opinion. It’s not that I am more or less than you are; I am just different from you. And the third cares about what his children will think about him; and a fourth cares about whether of not he seems respectable and educated in the eyes of others. Another person cares only about health, he doesn’t care if the whole world burns down, and the main thing is health. So, all these methods of pain and reward are different for everyone.

Question: If a person feels he is not progressing but he likes the way he’s being treated, is that okay?

If a person did not progress but the attitude towards him suits him he is not evolved yet, he can’t progress. If he feels no pain then how will he progress? There are people who live in some desolate village, they have everything, and they know that that’s life. You get up, you work, you eat, you sleep and that’s it. Nothing changes, nothing should change, it’s the way it is, the way it’s been for thousands of years, and people live this way, like animals. An animal, the way it was born on its first day so it dies without any changes, without any evolution. A day old calf is called an ox and that’s it. That’s the way they live, that’s the way they exist. This form of living is what we call a beast.

If a person progresses toward spirituality, not progress with his bank account, we say that this person will, at some point, be a human, Adam, similar (Edame) to the Creator.

Question: When a person receives high spirits, what should he do now, restrict himself?

Enjoy! What is the problem? Can you do anything else? Why, what for?

Question (cont'd): You said that we have to make a Tzimtzum, receive with the Light of Mercy. I am asking what to do now in the preparatory period.

This article is talking about the Light of Wisdom, a person who attains the Upper Light, who can restrict himself that’s why the Upper Light appears to him. If he couldn’t restrict himself, the Light wouldn’t appear.

The Upper Light isn’t revealed towards you, you can’t restrict your desire. If the Light was revealed, you would lose your head with such pleasure, you would say, “Just give me.” What will happen afterwards? You’ll just say, “I have no intellect I want and that’s it.”

First, you have to acquire a Masach (screen) where although such pleasure as the Upper Light comes, you can stop that pleasure and not enjoy. How can you? Do you have a door before the desire so you can close it? It’s impossible.

You can’t restrict your desire by the way of blocking your mouth. The spiritual desire doesn’t have a corporeal opening outlet that you can block and not allow or tell someone, “Tie my hands.” Restricting the desire should be at the same level of strength as the desire itself. How can that be? It can only be on condition as Baal HaSulam says with the example from the Pticha ( Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah) of the guest and the Host where I am dying to eat but I am standing opposite the Host and I am ashamed. And then I have these two forces operating in me, a desire where I am just starving, I have to have something. But on the other hand, to the same extent I am ashamed from the greatness of the Host, the non equivalence with the Host, I don’t know how to call it, and I cannot take.

To that extent the Upper Light measures degrees for us and doesn’t let us be in some degree before I have prepared myself to make a Tzimtzum on it when the Upper Light appears.

Say, out of 125 degrees, I have to raise to the degree number 72. How do I rise to that degree? I can do so on condition that I was at the previous degree and prepared myself with the greatness of the Creator, the greatness of the Host in such a way that if I rise to that degree, the Upper Light will appear to me with less concealments. From Ein Sof to degree 72, there is less concealment, one veil is removed as compared to the previous degree. So, I am ready to make concealment over the Upper Light, on that great pleasure.

When I make that concealment over it, the Tzimtzum, then I am standing before pleasure and now I choose like in Masach de Hirik, I choose: on the right, there is bestowal, pleasures and the Upper Force. On the left there is my great desire. How do I equalize them? I get the force that corrects me from the right line which corrects part of my left and puts together my Partzuf which is exactly equal to that degree. The degree that bestows on me is called my world and that Partzuf is called my soul or “I.” Where does my Partzuf come from? I built it as the middle line (see Drawing No.1)

Question: How do I work on it now?

The work right now is: “What do I lack?” To be equipped with the force of resistance so the Host will seem important to me but I don’t see Him. So, how can I? Let Him show Himself. If He shows Himself, I’ll enjoy Him. Then I’ll be beyond the Tzimtzum, I’ll be receiving. So, how can the Host appear and I will receive from this only the strength of His greatness, the respect for Him, so I can work by stopping myself and not receive from Him? How in a state where I don’t see the Host, can be impressed with His greatness as if I see Him so that sensation of greatness will serve for me as a strength that stops me from enjoying Him? How is that possible?

They say it is possible; it can be done only through the force of society. Society bestows on me, in the form of hearsay, that the Host is great. If I invest myself in the society and they tell me and talk about the goal, its greatness and I am affected by society, it serves me as if I am in contact with the Host. That’s how I in advance, while still being in the lower degree, prepare myself so that when I come to the higher degree, I will be able to resist the pleasure. Otherwise, how else can I in advance, be equipped with those powers at the higher degree? The gap between the degrees is where the society and the environment provide for me. Therefore I need it

Question: What is spiritual luck?

Luck precisely means that a person receives discernments in drops. Luck in Hebrew comes from the word Nozel (fluid); it drips, comes drop by drop. That’s how the revelation comes to him by a stream and there are gaps between the drops. In the gaps between the drops, he prepares himself through the environment for those drops; these drops are the Light of Wisdom. It is in the breaks between the drops that he should acquire the power of the importance for where the drops come from, the importance of the Host. He takes that from the environment, he acquires the OhrHassadim, the force of bestowal; the Host is great and I want to bestow on Him. Since He is great naturally I want to bestow on Him, give to Him.

It turns out that luck is the Upper behavior, Upper Providence which enables a person during the breaks between the drops, to acquire vessels for those drops.

Question: Let’s say a person is at 72nd degree. We talk about equivalence of form with that degree and then you feel good. So why should a person want to aspire for more, since we know that each one is at another level?

I don’t know, I’ll ask you something else. Why does a person want anything? Does he choose his desires? I want to eat now, to drink, to sleep, to dance, to read and to hear something; I have a thousand desires. How old are you?

Student: Fifty two.

Well, I am a little older but you have gone through almost half your life, right? So, let me ask you, the desires that were in you, are they yours when you look back at life? Now that you are studying, you learn that they are not. Before that you thought you thought you are designing your desires?

Student: I was sure I was bestowing, I decided I want to study.

When you were going through it at that time, did you think it was you?

Student: That’s why I am here.

Say, in the next minute you’ll have certain desires. Are you now planning them to happen?

Student: No.

They happen. It means that it happens this way. Where do they come from? Kabbalists tell us that we were as one common soul in the world Ein Sof, all of us, and we slid down to this world, to the lowest degree (See Drawing No.1). But as we came down from Ein Sof to this world and from each degree, from each state within us there remained a Reshimo, information. On the way back up, we go back to the same states on which we came down.

Hence I never determine who I should be. A person who begins to determine who he should be in life, from the perspective of Kabbalah, is a stupid person. We’re talking about the level at which he sees the whole process because he is studying, and he wants to, and things seem to him.

However according to the nature of creation, a person is to worry only about one thing and he shouldn’t plan for anything except that one. How I will constantly accumulate strength to think about the bestower, the Upper Force who is great so that I can bestow to Him to be equal in form. That should be our only concern. If I think about any other goals and forms, I am already wasting my power. It’s not for the goal, it’s irrelevant. I am not getting anything by that.

When a person who begins to plan his next day, besides reaching greater equivalence of form with the Creator, the work is useless because he doesn’t know what he will have tomorrow, in what form he will be tomorrow. A different thought, a different spirit, a person is new every day. So why deal with things that will change anyway including plans? We see it in life that we cannot plan.