We understand the purpose of this wisdom on a personal and global level is to bring complete transformation; when you study the writings of Rav Ashlag, he makes it clear. We know Rosh Hashanah is unique to any other time of the year. The Zohar explains our soul has completely discharged its life energy. Today and tomorrow we will recharge. It’s important to charge ourselves, and to think about the world. We have completely discharged our soul’s ability to sustain itself in this world. To the degree of our desire to share this with the world, to that degree we will recharge our battery.

As we come to these connections that the kabbalists put together to enable this recharging of our soul and of the world, the first thought we have to have in our minds is that we have to come completely empty. The kabbalists teach that the only thing that is missing in our personal life and in the world is the vessel, the Desire. The Light itself is ever present. The Desire to Share of the Creator is ever present. The single differentiator of receiving or not is the Desire, the vessel.

As we are aware of the fact that we need to completely recharge now, we have to realize that we have nothing today. What does that mean? I don’t have a little bit of health, happiness, relationships, and I want more. Today I have to complete the complete desire for everything.

If a person’s consciousness today is I have a lot but need more, that is limiting the vessel and the amount of Light we can draw for ourselves, our family, and the world in this year.

On Rosh Chodesh I give a lecture that we send to the various Centres. One of the things we are doing this year is editing videos of the Rav from 10, 15, 20 years or so ago and, if needed, I am adding commentary. He was talking about the month of Scorpio. The majority of the lecture was about consciousness. Secondly he spoke about the difficulty to accept the power of our consciousness because it’s too simple. If it was out there, not just in our mind to accomplish, we would have an easier time to accept it.

Our desire is what manifests the Light. Today on Rosh Hashanah is the important day to recharge ourselves. To the degree we understand we have nothing today, that we need to receive everything today in all aspects, that is the vessel that the Light of Rosh Hashanah can come to.

If you look at the writings of the Zohar and the Kabbalists, they talk about the month leading to Rosh Hashanah when we cleanse ourselves and look at the negativity we have created. We have t’shuvah to cleanse that.

The Zohar makes very clear, on Rosh Hashana, although it’s called judgment, we do not mention one thing we have done of a negative nature. The Ari says we don’t even eat nuts because the numerical value of the word is the same numerical value as the word sin. We don’t make connection to negativity of any kind. Today is about completion. Today is the day on which we make the vessel for the year. It’s the consciousness we have to have for these two days, which will manifest our year. This is the vessel to which we will draw everything. Today we are perfect. Today we connect to that part of ourselves that has never been damaged, never connected to anything but purity and completion.

Why? Because we are creating the vessel for the year. On Yom Kippur and other days we can think about the negativity and use tools to remove it. These two days we don’t even touch something with the numerical value of sin. The consciousness of these two days is the vessel that will manifest. We have to have the consciousness that we are perfect.

As Rav Ashlag says in the Ten Luminous Emanations, everyone of us was there at the sin of Adam, before the sin of Adam, at the moment of the thought of creation, the moment at which perfection for eternity was felt and manifested. All together, the soul of Adam, we fell to the Desire to Receive for the Self Alone. Before that was our perfection. These two days of Rosh Hashanah are the days we need to connect to that perfection — to make a true work of this, to take time and go back and feel that perfection — because we have it within us, and in these two days we have to connect with it. On other days of the year, there are ways to reveal Light through our negativity, but not on Rosh Hashanah.

To set up our year perfectly, we have to reconnect to that part of ourselves that is perfect — the perfection before the sin of Adam, and the perfection when the entire world collectively comes to the point of no darkness. We have to connect to that part everyone of us has within our soul: first, to have the consciousness of having nothing, and therefore a vessel for everything; second, to connect to our perfection (these two are the lead-up to manifest the amazing Light that is available today); and the third is realizing we are becoming a completely different person.

We received the writings of Rav Ashlag, and we need to think about and feel that we are becoming a new person. Anything that was a barrier to us in the previous year, that stopped us, need not be there anymore. We have the power. Everyone of us will connect to this energy available to all humanity today on a different level. Probably not one of us will have the same experience. It all comes to our awareness, our consciousness.

This is about consciousness, not about understanding. These should be points to take to all of our work in the next two days, to understand we have the opportunity to become a completely different person, a better person, a stronger person.

I hope all of us feel it from last night, from today, and have it in our consciousness. There is a gift available for all humanity, and for all of us here, to become a new person, a different person. It’s not a negative thing that our life force ends before Rosh Hashanah. Anything of a positive nature remains. As Rav Ashlag teaches, no positive energy can ever dissipate. It is there today and will remain for us forever. But the negativity, everything about ourselves that we do not want to hold onto, all of that does not have to go with us today and tomorrow. We can become a completely different person in the sense of positivity.