In order to really partake of this great Light that’s available, we have to understand the preparation for Rosh Hashanah. It’s not a coincidence it comes right before Rosh Hashanah. It’s this Light that can prepare us for Rosh Hashanah.

There are two sections in the Zohar that speak to the month of Elul, and specifically to the last week before Rosh Hashanah.

On the flight back from London, I was reading in this section of Lech Lecha. It’s made clear that Abraham’s focus in life was to transform people. In the Torah and in the explanation in the Zohar, it’s clear that Abraham’s mission very much parallels the Centre’s mission. Reading it this time, I got a deeper understanding of the true importance.

It’s talking about the time after Abraham had broken up with Lot. He heard about his brother being taken captive. In the Torah it’s physical captivity. In the Zohar, it talks about not just the person Abraham, but any righteous person whose soul remains pure in his body. He heard of other people still under control of Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone, still under the control of the negativity.

When it says about Abraham that he gathered his soldiers, they were not physical soldiers, but they were the spiritual people, the students around him, who had the ability to influence people. They prepared themselves in their mind, body, and soul to go to those who still did negative things, to transform them from their negativity.

Abraham and his students ran after these people. They would go to them and talk to them about how living one’s life based on Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone would lead to darkness both in this world and the next. Abraham did not sleep, let himself rest, in the morning and at night, until he took the time to talk to every person he could that he felt was not on the correct path.

He was able to transform them back towards the Light of the Creator. Abraham was able to bring back all of the property. Abraham had the ability, because he did not rest, to truly transform the people.

The Zohar says Abraham had the ability not only to transform the negative people, but also to transform the negativity into Light. It’s an important understanding to have. We see things in the world of a negative nature. One of the things the Zohar makes clear, and certainly in this week, we have to strengthen in our mind the appreciation of how our negativity contributes, and is one in the same, as the collective negativity in the world.

It’s easy to look at others and see their darkness. And it’s easy to see the darkness in the world. What we don’t understand enough is how our negativity contributes to it. When I act with my ego, with lack human dignity, maybe with anger, it has to be clear in my mind that every such action strengthens the global negativity and the manifestation of famine, pain, suffering and death. It is in some part a manifestation of our own personal negativity.

As we come to Rosh Hashanah, and the kabbalists explain the preparation has to be a true desire to remove the ultimate negativity, to remove darkness completely from our world, we have to internalize and appreciate that every time we act on the manifestation of the Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone, we are contributing to that global negativity, to the global pain.

This section was brought to my attention, and I thought about Abraham, a tremendously high soul. Certainly he had much to do rather than to simply help one more person. He ran after Lot. One person. Abraham had clarity about the damage this one person, Lot, was doing to the world.

It’s easy to say that if I could create a great change, I would do it. If it’s only me, how important can it be? What the Zohar is telling us here is about the importance of the one person. And in the preparation for Rosh Hashanah, the one person is ourself. If we really appreciate the darkness we created this year, the times we acted in selfishness, in anger, in a way that lacked human dignity, we can create tremendous change. We have contributed to our own pain, and in ways we don’t appreciate yet to the global pain, to the global darkness.

For Abraham Avinu this was clear. He knew it was worth using his entire time, not sleeping day and night, to transform one person. He knew one person’s negativity has a tremendous manifestation on the world’s darkness.

We are preparing for Rosh Hashanah, and we want to come to Rosh Hashanah clean. And very often we come toward the end of process and think, How can I get out of it now? I have only a week. I have to have removed that darkness. The Creator gave us this opportunity of this Shabbat. This is not a coincidence that it’s all the Shabbats of the year coming together with it. We have a great job, a very important job to do on this Shabbat.

We have to get the assistance to cleanse ourself, not only for ourself, but for the world. It can only start with an appreciation of what we have done. Every word, every thought we have of Desire to Receive for the Self-Alone brings darkness into our life . . . that’s true. But we need to also appreciate the darkness we create in the world. We cannot separate the darkness we see in the world around us from the actions we do in our daily life.

One person. Ourself. If we are able to truly cleanse, and we can this Shabbat, starting with awareness. If we understand we need the Light on this Shabbat, because of all the darkness I have created for myself and for the world, and I no longer differentiate the darkness in the world and the darkness in my actions, and we want to transform it, how great is that? How much manifestation will that have in the world? We are tremendously powerful, for the good, and chas v’shalom, for the darkness. We don’t appreciate it.

The good new is that on this Shabbat, all the Light of this year comes to help us. But it can only help us if we appreciate the assistance we need. The first step is knowing every action of selfishness, anger, lack of human dignity that I did this year did not dissipate. It is still around and causes darkness and pain for ourselves and for the world. We have the ability on this Shabbat to remove it if we truly understand the importance.