Lesson 4 “Embracing Humanity through Bestowal and Joy”

SOURCE OF LESSON

Embracing Humanity through Bestowal and Joy

1. Degel Machane Ephraim, BeShalach [When Jacob Sent]

One who truly wants to serve the Creator must include himself with all creations, connect himself with all the souls, include himself with them, and they with him. That is, you should leave for yourself only what is needed for connecting the Shechina [Divinity]. This requires closeness and many people, for the more people serve the Creator, the more the light of the Shechina appears to them. For this reason, one must include himself with all the people and with all creations, and raise everything to their root, to the correction of the Shechina.

2. Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment”

I say that the first and only Mitzva that guarantees the achievement of the aspiration to attain Lishma is to resolve not to work for oneself, apart for the necessary works—merely to provide for one’s sustenance. In the rest of the time, he will work for the public: to save the oppressed, and every being in the world that needs salvation and benefit.

3. Maor VaShemesh, Devarim

It is known that the most important is the true connection among the friends. This causes all the salvations and the sweetening of the judgments. When you gather together in love, brotherhood, and friendship. By this, all the judgments are removed and sweetened with mercy, and through the connection, complete mercy and revealed kindness are revealed in the world.

4. RABASH, Article No.6 (1984), “Love of Friends”

The purpose of creation is not necessarily for a select group. Rather, the purpose of creation belongs to all creations without exception. It is not necessarily the strong and skillful, or the brave people who can overcome. Rather, it belongs to all the creatures.

5. Baal HaSulam, “Anyone Who Is Sorry for the Public”

A servant of the Creator who is not sorry for the public but feels only his own personal lack, his receptacle for abundance is also not greater. As a result, he will not be able to receive the collective revelation of Godliness in the form of the comfort of the public, since he did not prepare a Kli to receive this collective discernment, but only his individual discernment.

Conversely, one who is sorry for the public and feels the troubles of the public as his own trouble is rewarded with seeing the complete revelation of the Shechina, meaning the comfort of the whole of Israel. Because his lack is a collective lack, the abundance of Kedusha [holiness] is also collective.

6. Baal HaSulam, “The Writings of the Last Generation”

Life’s direction is to attain adhesion with Him, strictly to benefit the Creator, or to reward the public with achieving adhesion with Him.

7. Maor Eynaim, Yitro [Jethro]

It is known that the whole world, with all created beings, must receive their vitality from the Creator all the time and at any given moment. Therefore, it is appropriate and fitting for the righteous to be a medium between the Creator and the entire world, to connect everything to Him, to make a pathway and a track, a passage for the abundance and vitality, and a pipeline to pour down to all created beings. He is the one who unites heaven and earth, who connects the whole world to the Creator, so they will not part from Him.

8. Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”, Item 63

In our generation, although the essence of the souls is the worst, which is why they could not be selected for Kedusha until today, they are the ones that complete the Partzuf of the world and the Partzuf of the souls with respect to the Kelim, and the work is completed only through them. Now, when the Kelim of NHY are being completed, and all the Kelim—Rosh, Toch, Sof—are in the Partzuf, full measures of light, meaning complete NRN in Rosh, Toch, Sof, are being extended to all those who are worthy. Hence, only after the completion of these lowly souls can the highest lights manifest, and not before.

9. RABASH, Article 11 (1987), “Purim, and the Commandment: Until He Does Not Know”

By causing the entire world to receive the delight and pleasure that exist in the purpose of creation. It follows that he has become a partner of the Creator in that through him will come the assistance by which everyone will achieve the purpose of creation. Thus, he has become a partner of the Creator

10. Baal HaSulam, “The Last Generation”

There is an allegory about friends who were lost in the desert, hungry and thirsty. One of them had found a settlement filled abundantly with every delight. He remembered his poor brothers, but he had already drawn far off from them and did not know their whereabouts. What did he do? He began to shout out loud and blow the horn, perhaps his poor, hungry friends would hear his voice, approach him, and come to that settlement that is filled with every delight.

So is the matter before us: We have been lost in the terrible desert along with all of humanity, and now we have found a great, abundant treasure, namely the books of Kabbalah in the treasure. They satisfy our yearning souls and fill us abundantly with lushness and contentment; we are satiated and there is more.

Yet, we remember our friends, who were left hopeless in the terrible desert. There is a great distance between us, and words cannot bridge it. For this reason, we have set up this horn to blow out loud so that our brothers might hear and draw near and be as happy as we are.

Know, our brothers, our flesh, that the essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the knowledge of how the world came down from its elevated, heavenly place, until it reached our ignoble state. This reality was necessary, as “the end of an act is in the preliminary thought,” and His thought acts instantaneously, for He needs no tools to work with as we do. Thus, we were emanated in Ein Sof [infinity] in utter perfection from the start, and from there we came to this world.

It is therefore very easy to find all the future corrections, which are destined to come, from the perfect worlds that preceded us.