Congress week

Dear Readers, as a result of the editor taking part in the forthcoming 8 day Congress week, the blog will resume in 8-9 days.

Upcoming Events in Israel

Arava Congress for Men/Mirror Congress for Women in Petach Tikva

January 31 – February 1, 2014

Integral Education Training

February 2 – 3, 2014

World Kabbalah Convention

February 5 – 7, 2014

Link to Congress page

Everyone Is Traveling To The Convention

I am filled with anxiety about our convention in February. We are given work from above, an opportunity, responsibility for the souls, as if they are put into our hands in order to take care of them. This is a dear and great responsibility.

The Creator wants to be discovered and places before you conditions so that you must relate to this vessel as you would relate to the Creator. For precisely the right integration between all parts of the vessel, all parts of the Divinity, constructs the form of the Creator.

All of these desires that arrive from all ends of the world are the base; they are the area in which He is revealed. They invest so much, they are with us all the time. Many groupssimply lock up their centers and come to the convention in full force.

And this imposes upon us a great responsibility. This is not talking about the organizational part, but rather, how we embrace and absorb them immediately and are absorbed within them. We are not hosting them; rather, we include them among us without any difference, in a completely new general condition that doesn’t exist in us or in them at the moment.

They are making supreme efforts, arriving from the most distant places, loaded with an unprecedented intensity, and we must reach a new state for connection, for the yearning for mutual bestowal within which the Bestower will be revealed.

Question: If we succeed in melting into one another and becoming integrated within an immense common desire, will this create a world vessel on a new level? How will we not waste the opportunity? This is the realization of everything that we have been waiting a lifetime for.

Answer: We must awaken one another, be responsible for each other. Each one is now determining his fate.

Question: It is up to us to acquire the deficiency of the friends. How do I pay for this?

Answer: By renunciation of the ego. There is no other price. It is as if we peel the shell from the heart in order to adhere to the friends until we feel their desire as our desire. We connect the desires that yearn for the discovery of the Creator. We connect and expect the arrival of the Light that Reforms, the power that will connect us and be revealed in us as the power of bestowal. And then we will flow within the characteristic of bestowal. From now on, all of our deeds are derived only from this feeling; We feel that we are in a sea of bestowal. It envelops us in warmth from all directions and obligates us with subtlety to carry out our obligations. I nullify myself and then this characteristic of bestowal works through me.

But this is only mutual integration. And after that it is up to me to grow like an embryo, to hold the characteristic of bestowal within my ego. It is like a boat set into the sea; I want to increase the activity of the general bestowal that is revealed in me on the first level, the initial stage of the Light of Nefesh de Nefesh”. Through my willing combination with this characteristic, I strengthen the action, they say 620 times in 125 spiritual levels. And all of this is the result of my participation, of my efforts in a sea of bestowal in which I discover myself like an embryo in the water’s of its mother’s womb.

In the beginning I give myself up over the growing desire to receive, nullifying it in order to dwell within the characteristic of bestowal, identifying with it. And this is active work, active nullification of myself, and is realized over an opposing ego. The “flesh” that is added to the embryo awakens opposition and it is as if it builds from itself a negative image of itself.

Question: So how do we attain all of this? How do we acquire the deficiency of the friends?

Answer: This is through faith above reason. I want the characteristic of bestowal to dominate in me above all of my intellect and feeling. I already understand that I am not the master of my own house. In every moment of my life something dominates me that is revealed against my will. But there is also free choice. I choose the dominance of the characteristic of bestowal. In the face of all the desires that are revealed in me and arouse rejection, indifference, and additional negative things in me, I want bestowal to dominate in me.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Life Giving Sprout From A Rotted Grain

The first Rabash article about the group starts with the words:“We have gathered here to establish a society…” since without it a man cannot reach the goal. Only through it can one implement oneself and only due to it one grows.

One’s spiritual growth has nothing in common with material development when one is nurtured by a group and thus develops. Spiritual development takes place within the group to the extent of the connection and unity among the friends, to the degree of my disappearance in the group, my dissolving in it.

Once a person understands that this is one’s spiritual growth and focuses solely on this, one can consider he is on the right track.

Before that, one represents “an unplanted seed”: it is stored somewhere, but nothing can grow out of it, and nobody knows if anything at all will ever grow out of it. This is why it is a way by which we can evaluate a person who belongs to our organization, who comes to us, studies in the Kabbalah Education Center, the Kabbalah Academy or takes any other Kabbalah course.

One can stay with us for a long time, but only when one starts regarding oneself not only as a part of the group, but as a seed that has to be planted into the group as it would be planted in the ground or it won’t ever grow—when one starts sensing and evaluating oneself this way, one’s spiritual preparation begins.

Seriousness and effectiveness of our preparation depend on the ability of the group to absorb new people and on the degree of the group’s ability to attract people and have them literally dissolve in it and feel that it is the place where each one can fit physically, morally, materially and spiritually.

We have to position ourselves in the group as a seed that practically disappears when growing and turns into “nothing and nobody.” We should consider ourselves to be a material that originates a qualitatively new entity: the group. This is what our spiritual growth is about.

We have to measure and evaluate ourselves relative to our spiritual growth with regard to our absorption into the group. Therefore, our rises and downfalls, all sorts of changes in our moods, sensations, understandings, and so on and so forth have to be sensed not individually but collectively.

It doesn’t matter how much one knows, whether one is able to sense spirituality, what one understands or realizes, or how deeply one knows the study material. Those are not the units of measurement, but false ideas of what spiritual growth is, because spiritual growth is measured solely by a quality and to the extent of one’s ability to unite with others.

That’s why the first thing that we have to reach is a zero level, when we become as a drop of semen or a seed that is planted in the ground and that becomes nothing.

In other words, all our egoism, our whole lives, everything that happened before, should not be taken into consideration at all. Naturally, we have to take care of our material life. At the material plane we have to continue being who we used to be previously, but the main thing for us is to turn into a drop of semen that initiates the spiritual life, the development of the fetus. That’s how we should visualize ourselves.

Only when one senses that one has almost achieved this state, continues aspiring to it, and evaluates oneself only through this prism, when this state becomes one’s goal, one’s dream, when anything one does and exerts at is aimed at achieving this result, only then one gets on the right track. The rest of one’s alleged achievements and attainments are not important to one anymore. This basic re-loading and re-evaluation of oneself is the change that is far more important than anything else. This kind of re-evaluation places a person in the very beginning of the spiritual ladder.

Then, when one turns into a zero, i.e., when the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) takes place, one draws a line, and from this moment on, one’s appreciation of the group and one’s environment continues increasing. One clarifies whether one is just positioned inside the group or one represents the group’s active part that fully contributes oneself to it and is able to enter one’s friends and the entire group as an active element not out of one’s past, but out of one’s present moment, when one absorbs the desires, hopes, and goals of the entire group as one’s own, when one works for others as a mother for her children, serves them and makes everything one can for their further advancement.
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From the St Petersburg Convention 7/12/13 Lesson 4

Rendezvous At The Dump

Rabash, “Letter 29”: And the idea is that work that is usually done with trees is also done with a person in order to train him. Things are brought that are required for working with the tree, and from that, we learn about working with a person. First of all, there is manure.

The work of the person on himself begins from this. After he makes a choice and is going in the right direction by deciding that he will ascend and be involved with his soul, he serves the soul and not the body. We don’t abandon the body. We require it, but only to the degree that it helps with the work on the soul.

We fertilize, we bring manure to them. Likewise the person must bring manure into himself, meaning garbage, the despicable qualities in a person. But the person doesn’t need to bring manure from outside as he would with the tree; rather, he must bring in the manure from the hidden to the revealed; this means within his emotion, so that he will feel the degree of the contemptibility of his despicable qualities. Otherwise he is not prepared to correct his deeds.

We should not be afraid of all that “garbage” that floats up to us from within. We are talking about a person who does good deeds, who always is yearning for the good, meaning, for bestowal and connection. However, it is precisely through this that he awakens and brings up all of the garbage that is hidden inside of him that he must clarify and correct. This is the first stage of the inner work.

We don’t need to be afraid that within everyone a sack of stinking garbage is discovered. As long as you haven’t discovered it, it doesn’t stink. However, you must discover it in order to carry out your first spiritual work, which is “fertilization.” All respect is due to those people who, in spite of all the stench that they discover in their egoistic characteristics, continue to strengthen the understanding within them that this comes from the Creator. The Creator arranges this so that they always can make the right choice and advance onward.

The tree lives thanks to this manure only, so fertilize! It is amazing how, through the right use of the right garbage recognized by a person as fertilizer for growth, he is elevated through faith above reason, helping him to advance. This is not simple work, but very respected. The sorting of our internal garbage and its correct use makes it possible for us to rise to a higher and higher level all the time.

The higher we rise, the more vile garbage and filth we discover within us, and on the highest levels, such characteristics begin to be revealed in a person which shock him, “Is all this really found within me?” Yes, in every person are hidden the most disgusting characteristics, and only our connection can save us. Only the connection with the friends directs a person correctly. We hope that we will succeed in raising all of our inner garbage to holiness!

We must understand that Mount Sinai is a mountain of garbage, and it is precisely upon this that we must go. There, at the peak, above all of our garbage, exists our encounter with the Creator, really in the middle of the central garbage dump. The main thing is not to be afraid of this garbage and not to hide it, rather to see that it is possible to correct it with the help of the friends. It is impossible to do anything in spirituality alone, not even a single step. However, thanks to the friends, you will transform this stench into a pleasant fragrance.

Everything depends only on the direction. If the direction is egoistic, then we smell a terrible stench, and if it is in order to bestow, then this smell suddenly becomes fragrant incense.
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From a Talk during the Meal 1/17/14

Poison That Heals

There is nothing besides the Torah and prayer, that is, the discovery of the shortcomings that I must clarify, sort through. I must connect with the friends in order to create the right deficiency that is imperative for the correction that will take place through our closeness, our integration with each other, the connection and adhesion of all the shattered parts.

As a result, we reach the inability to connect, and we clarify that there exists some kind of obstacle among us that disturbs us. It could be that the Creator won’t allow us to do this or it is our egoistic nature itself, which was also created by the Creator.

In other words, we discover disturbances on the way towards connection, correction, and restoration of the whole vessel, the one collective soul in which we can discover the Creator as a single power, and in this manner we realize the goal of creation, this being our personal goal as well.

If we work on all of this, then we reach our true shortcoming: our inability to attain connection. And about this it is said: “The One who makes peace on high will make peace for us,” will complete our unification, and will connect us. A prayer like this will be accepted immediately and we will merit an answer to the prayer.

The answer to the prayer arrives in the form of the Light that Reforms that connects us. This Light is called Torah. Therefore it is said, “I created the evil inclination,” the desire that separates us and doesn’t allow us to connect. At the moment that we want to connect, to be included with each other, to melt into one another, we discover the evil inclination that is awakened in us. And before that it doesn’t show itself.

It is concealed inside like a snake and we don’t feel it. But the moment that we begin to approach each other with the intention to connect, then the snake shows its head and doesn’t allow it. It secretes its poison, and then we understand, feel, and discover what that “evil inclination” is.

But against this evil inclination, the Light that Reform comes and transforms it into the good inclination. That is, without this ego we would not succeed in reaching connection; it is specifically the evil inclination that becomes the good inclination. It is like snake venom, which on the one hand is poisonous but on the other hand is used as a remedy. Every remedy is a poison, but a poison taken in a very small dose that can be used to treat the disease.

Poison is at the foundation of every remedy, but not every poison is a remedy. If we match the poison of the snake to the poison within us, then the Light of correction is revealed within. That is how we reach the Torah; that is, we already have Torah (the Light that Reforms) and prayer.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Ideal Woman At A Convention

Question: How should a woman ideally carry out her role at the three upcoming conventions?

Answer: The ideal woman includes all of the women of our world group within her. All of the women are connected together; they nullify their ego, their desire to gossip, to criticize, and their mutual disdain.

And it is not that they have forgiven each other’s shortcomings; rather, they truly feel that we are becoming one body. Our intellect and emotions detach us and bring us out of this common collective body by giving each one the illusion that she exists separately from the others.

We come to the convention in order to discover the truth, to see with the undistorted view that the whole world is one system. There is only matter that was created by the Creator“from nothing” in which the power of “something from something” dominates. Only love and connection dwell in the world. And that it seems to us otherwise is only because we are not like this ourselves. If I change myself in order to connect with others, then I will directly feel the upper world, here and now. Nothing else is needed other than changing our perception.

The ideal woman of Bnei Baruch feels this higher system, is included within it, and looks at the world with corrected eyes. I dream to see such women.

Question: How do we do the maximum? How do we focus on the inner work in order to attain this ideal image most rapidly?

Answer: We start from here, that all of the particular problems that exist in a group begin to be perceived and corrected as a common problem in a family. And we are even more than a family, we are one body. Even a hundred years ago Baal HaSulam wrote that the world of today is one family, one system. But we didn’t see this until now. We hope that now our Bnei Baruch group will ultimately become one united woman and one united man. And then these two halves can connect with an immense merger in which the Creator is discovered. We are already very close to this condition; so come, let’s hasten our advancement towards this.

I expect to see everyone as great as a result of the convention. And the women will play an even more important role here than the men. We know that women quietly determine the whole order of our lives. Therefore, I very much hope that the women will help us to rise over the course of the next two weeks in a meaningful way. After the convention we will already meet on the next level. I wish all of us success!
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From Kab TV’s Preparation to the Convention 1/24/14

The Glass Doesn’t Wait For The Bullet

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 33: And you must know that any contentment of our Maker from bestowing upon His creatures depends on the extent that the creatures feel Him – that He is the giver, and that He is the one who delights them. For then He takes great pleasure in them, as a father playing with his beloved son, to the degree that the son feels and recognizes the greatness and exaltedness of his father and his father shows him all the treasures he had prepared for him….

Question: How does this “playing” combine with the suffering on the way?

Answer: When a person begins to work with spirituality, he divides himself into two parts. On the one hand, he wants to acquire the desire to bestow and on the other hand, he wants to correct his desire to receive upon which he builds bestowal. Therefore he suffers within the desire to receive and has pleasure within the desire to bestow.

Question: Is it possible to feel the playing before crossing the “Machsom”?

Answer: No. For the playing is a relationship with the Creator where I am connected with Him, where we are together in an embrace, in love, where He fulfills me. How is it possible to feel this within the damaged vessels? If the Creator were to be revealed before the Machsom, I would remain forever within the vessels for the sake of reception and would no longer succeed in escaping from the Klipa. Even at the time of the Shevirat ha Kelim (shattering of the vessel), the pleasure doesn’t enter into the desire to receive for the purpose of reception, for its Masach was shattered previously. So the glass starts to shatter before the bullet strikes it.

The spiritual pleasure that is received for the sake of reception would suck me in forever. Drugs and other addictions in our world are only a small taste of it. After the restriction(Tzimtzum), the Light can no longer enter into the vessel without a Masach (screen). The moment that it approaches, even before its entry, the vessels is immediately shattered, for it’s not ready to receive, to feel it. And so it remains only a Ner Dakik (thin candle) whose goal is to correct the shattering.

The Light never enters the desire to receive. This is because the law of equivalence of form that preceded creation is latent in the thought of creation, and it is the desire of the Creator that the creature will be like Him, which is to say, perfect.

Precisely from the shattering, from the distance, we reach the “playing.” The way begins from great yearning, from thirst. For the playing is not merely pleasure. That is, I am constantly in contact with Him, I “taste” Him, experience a wide variety of feelings on all sides and in all manners. The playing is not “easy and cheap” pleasure, rather it’s something that we never cease to enjoy, we discover more and more new possibilities. But in the meantime we don’t know what the true pleasure from bestowal is.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Temple That Is Built In The Heart

Question: Are the objects and the buildings mentioned in the Torahrelated to spiritual forces in any way?

Answer: Of course. But a person who does not understand and who isn’t in the spiritual world cannot physically play with them. He will not know how!

So only the wise, which means those who are on a spiritual level, can draw all this from their spiritual level, knowing every movement they make: how to process things and how to do them. But if they are not on a spiritual level they cannot even depict all this on paper.

Some call it building the third Temple, but how should they build it, what should they build? You don’t even know how to start. It has to live in you. You should understand exactly how it should be done, without drawings!

Like Ramchal, the drawings should be inside you, including all the details: the stones, the wood, etc. You cannot instruct anyone since everyone should understand you internally. There has to be a team in which there is the Temple that simply embodies its external form, its imprint.

On the whole there is no need for an external display if we come to the general end of correction so that everything will live in us and ascend from the worlds of BYA to the world of Atzilut then there is no need to embody anything in stone. The third Temple is the spiritual end of correction that requires an embodiment in the heart and not in stone.
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From Kab TV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/19/13

Don’t Devote Any More To This World Than It Deserves

Question: I noticed that  over time, I gradually become less sensitive by the standards of this world.

Answer: You become less sensitive to some things and more sensitive to others. The main thing is to be sensitive to the connection with the friends, the group, and to be generally sensitive to being incorporated. This is what should impress you and cause an inner shivering, that should pressure you and excite you and cause you pain and joy.

You should look at all the corporeal aspects of life like food, sex, family, money, respect, and knowledge as useful and essential aspects only. I need all this in order to advance normally, on a level that “is not condemned and is not praised.” Make sure you have all the basic necessities and use this world according to your needs, but be above it in your thoughts and your intentions. Don’t be overenthusiastic or ascetic. Don’t regret what happens to you in this world. Don’t devote to this world any more than it deserves. On the corporeal level, you should use it rationally, and in sensation, you yearn for connection with the Creator through the group.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/20/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Prayer By The Central Pillar

“Introduction toThe Book of Zohar,” “The Torah and a Prayer,” Item 184: And only after he is included in all three corrections of our holy fathers will he begin to correct Divinity, from the place Jacob the patriarch had left for us: to elevate fear to the quality of exaltedness because He is great and rules over everything. Afterwards, he will enter the house of assembly and will pray his prayer. That is, he should pray and extend the upper lights in her, with the fear of exaltedness, to bring her into the end of correction. Then it is written, “And He said to Me, ‘You are My Servant, Israel, in Whom I will show My glory.’”

We begin our corrections from Abraham, from the property of Hesed, Isaac, the property of Gevura, and Jacob, the property of Tifferet. These stages are called the forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then we reach the level of the sons: Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. It’s impossible to reach the corrections of the sons without correcting the levels of the forefathers first, from which we reach a prayer that fills us with the powers to take care of the sons. Thus we convey all the attributes of bestowal from HGT to NHY.

This is the work on our connection. Therefore, it is said that a person reaches a place called the house of assembly (synagogue), where he tries to be incorporated in everyone’s desires and sees to what extent he cannot do it. Then he raises a prayer.

A prayer is correct if it comes from the desire to connect. All our desires, our deficiencies, and our requests for connection come together and demand connection. This is called a prayer of many, in reply to which comes the Light that Reforms from Above and connects us. Such a connection among everyone becomes a vessel that is called a house of assembly and from it we receive a response to our prayer.

A house of assembly (congress) is not a corporeal building or a place but rather the groupin which our connection and unity is fulfilled. Jacob is the middle line, the central pillar. If we reach the middle line, it means that we pray in front of the pillar, which means that we ask for the correction from our connection. This is called being a prayer leader (the phase of Jacob) that is incorporated in everyone and prays that our connection be fulfilled and that we will be incorporated in one another, dissolve into one another and be as one.

Then this place becomes a house of assembly. The connection between us is calledShechina, and we are filled by the corrections of the Light that Reforms, and the Creatoris revealed in our corrected desires. We shouldn’t try to escape anywhere, instead we only should clarify this state and fulfill it more and more.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Rhythm Of Spiritual Development

In order to give new examples in my lectures, I constantly process texts from the primary sources and follow the news, documentaries, and anything that can help me find relevant associations.

Even if I don’t share all the information that I accumulate during the lessons, it still exists in the overall system since I am connected to everyone. So I don’t consider it my personal intellectual acquisitions because it already exists in relation to others even if I don’t express it verbally.

Question: So you never have the feeling of losing time?

Answer: This also happens sometimes. I used to see this when I was with Rabash and I didn’t understand how a person under the upper influence could be so detached from spirituality until he becomes nothing more than an ordinary protein body. Such states when you have no desire to read or to listen to anything are very rare, but from time to time they must occur, as if completing a certain rhythm in the spiritual development.

These states are very short, although they may sometimes take several hours, and when they are over, a person suddenly discovers a new stage and keeps on advancing. The best thing is if he manages to fall asleep when he is cut off, then it doesn’t pass in vain.

On the whole we deal with the desire and not with the body or with a person; the desire has to process itself to its full depth and its full height. It has to be incorporated, absorbed, and connected with all the other attributes, to develop itself, to respond, etc. Interestingly, when you are on the inanimate material level you feel it. But it is all a natural process.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/19/13

Living In Denial

Question: When does a person get to see that everything that happens in his life comes only from the Creator?

Answer: A person gets to see, as it is written, “There is none else besides Him” when he rises to complete faith and is ready to work without any response or reaction from the Creator, from the only power. He stops hoping to receive some kind of answer within his receptive Kli to see the Creator and to be convinced that this comes from Him. Only then will he merit feeling the only higher guidance, for otherwise everything goes into his egoistic, receptive Kli.

You are waiting for when you will actually see that the Creator is doing everything and you can prove that everything is right and you are ultimately be released from all doubts. However, this gain would be felt within your ego, so you will never get it. You simply don’t understand what the path is. You must discover more each time that it is impossible to advance on this path through your corporeal senses and intellect but only through the force of bestowal and the total nullification of the self.

If you let go of everything that you have now, then you will reach a level of spirituality that becomes a nullification of this life. Besides the necessities for the beastly body, all the rest of life goes on in full self-nullification.

You discover that “There is none else besides Him” after you construct this single Creator within yourself.

Nullification is realized within a group. I throw myself into the hands of the friends, but this is so they will take care of me. I hand myself over, and at that moment, I feel that there is a system here like called a “group” and it is concerned about me.

Question: However, what if I give myself over to the friends and I suffer?

Answer: If you suffer, this is a sign that you have not given yourself over. I give myself over happily! I am happy that I don’t use my feelings or my intellect for I have friends, a teacher, the Creator! I don’t exist by myself. I only adhere myself to them and this is all. They are my head and I am only the operator, their body. Whatever they desire, I carry out.

This is what is called adhesion. I want to exist like this. And as much as all kinds of problems, egoism, and heaviness of heart are added to me, I aspire to adhere to them even more. I want them to decide for me. This is not saying that I release myself from any responsibility to make life easier for myself. I do this because I want to adhere to what is higher—and for the upper to be my head and I will be the body. I will receive all orders, all instructions, from it.

I don’t ask the Creator when He will be revealed. I don’t need to discover Him. I want to nullify myself and not discover Him.
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From a Talk during the Meal 1/17/14

You Decide

Question: If a person is used to seeing us only on television or a computer screen, what would make him switch to an active phase and make him come to the February congress? After all, he feels good being at home, even if he agrees with what he is hearing.

Answer: Undoubtedly, it is more comfortable being at home.

In this case, everything depends on your free choice. First, do you have an opportunity to come to the congress? If everything was arranged from Above so that the answer is yes—if money, time, health, and other conditions that do not depend on you are granting you this possibility—then you are obliged to come.

It is a different matter if you were denied the ability to, let’s say, buy a ticket. Our friends are gathering from all over the world, including the most remote corners. For example, traveling from South America or Australia is very expensive. For some it is almost a prohibitive amount, yet they are coming.

This is where the freedom of choice comes in: If you were given an opportunity and you did not come, then you are simply rejecting the chance given to you by the Creator to come closer to Him, to arrive at a meeting with Him. After all, as it is written, “I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

If you are not granted this possibility, if insurmountable obstacles, which truly do not depend on you, are placed in front of you, then you will be given the same direct connection while being on the other side of the screen, but only on the condition that, for given reasons, it must be exactly this way.

One way or another, the analysis is entrusted to you. I already have received dozens of letters with similar questions and I almost never answer because this is a person’s free choice. He or she needs to make this decision on their own. Sometimes, there are unsolvable problems usually related to health. In that case, I take the responsibility upon myself and send a reply.

Essentially, we need to understand that this is where freedom of will lies. If you can come, then you must, and, if you are not able to—well, the Creator has arranged it this way so that, by staying at home, you will receive even more than from physical participation. Perhaps the external impression from what you would have seen in person would have been so negative that it would have flung you to the side. Perhaps it would have entered into an irreconcilable contradiction with your tastes, habits, and so on.

In any case, however, a person needs to make this decision on his own. He only needs to seize this opportunity because it is now that he can make a true breakthrough on the path.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Person’s Clothes Are His Inner Expression

The Torah, “Exodus,” 28:2: You shall make holy garments for your brother Aaron, for honor and glory.

Clothing (Levush) symbolizes the correction that has to be made on a person’s desires. If I have egoistic desires, distinct desires that are strong or even the weakest desires, we have to clothe them all, which means to clothe them with the intention for the sake of others, for the Creator.

The clearer, more aggressive, and more serious a desire is, the greater corrections it should undergo, which means “garments of splendor.” Thus the uncorrected correction, Aaron, is the worst.

It says: “When Israel falls, it falls lower than any nation in the world, and when they ascend, they ascend all the way to Heaven.” The reason is that it is possible with a giant egoistic desire in its revised form to do anything all the way to the Creator’s level. Then everyone will be impressed by their splendor because it’s impossible to compare the correction any ordinary nation has to make, with the ordinary desires people have.

Thus Moses and then the sons of Aaron and then the other priests are the clearest, most disgusting egoistic desires there may be if they are not corrected. So we see humanity’s attitude towards the Jews, and in the corrected states it will be the opposite. So the nations of the world are waiting for the Jews to acquire clothing, to ascend and to start working in order to bestow with all our special attributes.

Thus the “clothing of Aaron” is no simple concept. What actually distinguishes people in our world? It’s their clothes. It can be clothes, a house, whatever surrounds a person, whatever indicates his level, his state, has ascent above others, or his descent. This means that it’s an expression of status, of a person’s state.

Question: It appears that modern fashion has very powerful roots?

Answer: Of course, it stems from the same nature. The ego uses this means for its ascent.

In the spiritual world, clothes emphasize a person’s inner ascent above the world; the level of one’s bestowal, love and self annulment. To the extent that you annul yourself, you also ascend. In our world however it’s the opposite, it’s to the extent that you decorate yourself in front of the mirror like a monkey.

This will continue until we understand that clothes are a person’s inner expression. The fact that we wear fashionable clothes is not a correction but the opposite, a distortion.

After the sin of the tree of knowledge, the Creator told Adam that he needs to put on clothes, which means that he has to correct his ego so that it will help him overcome himself and reach love and bestowal. The Torah says that the Creator sewed these clothes for them, which means that he gave them the Upper Light by which the Returning Light, which means the intention of in order to bestow, was dressed in the ego.
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From Kab TV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/19/13