The Daily Direction 9.28.14 In Relation To Rabash "Yahrzeit" (Anniversary of his passing)

Everything is open; we now enter into the New Year

I'm looking forward to reach a state that the tens will be all over Israel and that we could realize these connections between all the tens like cogwheels and we'll feel how much we're connected to each other, all people as one unit. And around it, just like pressing the clutch, we'll also enter the entire world to spin with us together with our cogwheels, and everyone will start spinning around in one harmony.

From this tendency the general force is being revealed more and more that the Creator drives everything, and we thought that we are doing it. We discover that only He did everything but now we're willing to discover it, and it seems that there is no “our” force but everything comes from Him. Our effort builds the sense to feel that "There is None Else Beside Him." Let's hope.

Everything is open the year ahead now we enter into the New Year and we hope to gain that. Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and all the Kabbalists before them until Abraham and Adam HaRishon, are all standing and supporting us, we'll succeed. Le Chaim! [Yahrtzeit Meal Rabash, 28.9.14]  

We received permission to enter

This year we were blessed to start realizing Rabbeinu's way: Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag. We began to feel the network of connection between us, between all creatures, with those we see and those that for now we don't recognize. The time will come and we'll feel everyone, the network between all souls, and that we are connecting everything, we could be the managers of the network, the ones who influence, advanced and progress all others to become active parts of this. What has happened to us last year is a tangible entrance into the systems of souls, that now each and everyone has the ability to begin to feel the network and engage with it. To start to discover there what is written in all the Kabbalah books and by that realizing our souls, which is the sum of all the friends' desires, all creatures and the great ones ahead of us. We received permission to enter and now it all depends on our unity and that we can spread out this great spring.

We'll make an effort to realize these 2 directions, one to unity and the other to spreading it out. We hope that this year will be very special and that we could really see what the Kabbalists gave us and the depths and height of attainment Rabbeinu Baruch Shalom, had. Then we will truly justify our name, "Bnei Baruch". Le Chaim! [Har HaMenuchut, Jerusalem, 28.09.2014]

Practical Advice by Rabash

Excerpts from Rabash’s articles about the society.

We have gathered here to establish a society for all those interested in following the path and method of Baal HaSulam—the way to climb the rungs of man, and not remain as a beast.
–“The Purpose of Society 1”

We have gathered here to establish a society where each can follow the spirit of bestowal upon the Creator. And to bestow upon the Creator, we must first bestow upon man, and this is called “love of man.”

Love of man can only be with self annulment. On the one hand, each of us should feel humbled, and on the other hand, we should be proud that the Creator has given us the opportunity to partake in a society whose members have but one goal: to discover the Creator among us.
–“The Purpose of Society 1”

By being together in a group, like brothers, with love of friends, we can rise to adhesion with the Creator. This ladder is called “the path of bestowal,” and it is against our nature. Therefore, to be able to achieve it, there is but one advice: love of friends. Through it, each can help his friend.
–“Love of Friends”

The advice for achieving bestowal and the rule, “love thy friend,” is love of friends. If each is annulled before his friend and mingles with him, the small parts that want love of man become a single mass, united into a collective force. And each person has such great strength, he can realize the love of man. And then each of them can achieve love of God.
–“According to What Is Explained Concerning Love Your Friend”

The greater the society, the more it can affect each member, and produce a stronger atmosphere of the greatness of the Giver. In that state, everyone feels that bestowing upon the Creator is the greatest thing that one could have.
Accordingly, each person is happy that he’s been awarded with being among people who are privileged with giving to the Creator. Then, everything that one does in order to achieve bestowal brings him joy and happiness.
Also, to the extent that we think of the greatness of the Creator during the gathering, we cause each one to feel the importance of the greatness of the Creator. As a result, everyone is in a state of joy all day long.
-“The Order of the Association”

Everyone should try to instill everyone with a spirit of liveliness, hopefulness, and energy. Each of the friends should overcome his disappointment from not achieving bestowal, and will receive, through the group, hope, the strength to prevail, and confidence that he will achieve perfection.
What he previously thought—that he did not have the strength to acquire the quality of bestowal because the obstructions were too formidable—now he considers these obstructions as nothing. And he received all that from the force of the society, since everyone tried to bring support, hope, and a new atmosphere to the group.
–“What to Ask of the Assembly of Friends”

The goal of the assembly of friends must be clear to all: this result should be that each friend will awaken to love the other. This is called “love of man,” and this is what we must talk about.
–“What to Ask of the Assembly of Friends”

“When authors (also people who count, in Hebrew) are envious, wisdom mounts.” This means that when all the friends regard the society as being of a high degree, both in thought and in action, it is natural that each of them will have to rise from his qualities to new qualities, which the society has begotten in him.
–“Concerning Above Reason”

“One does not deliver oneself from imprisonment.” Rather, only a friend can help a friend in decline, and lift him from his state to a state of liveliness, so he acquires strength and confidence as though his goal is very near now.
–“They helped every one his friend”

One who sees that the friends are at a higher degree than his, helping each other, realizing what they’re learning in action, and sees within reason that he is in utter lowness, it certainly affects him. It gives him strength to overcome his idleness, for otherwise he will remain behind the group.
–“Concerning Above Reason”

There is a special power to adhesion of friends: through it, thoughts traverse from one to another, and each person is integrated in the powers of the whole society.
–“The Need for Love of Friends”

If one has love of friends, he sees the friends’ merit, and not their faults. It turns out that if he sees a drawback in his friend, it is a sign that the drawback is in him. Therefore, now he should see that it is not his friend who needs correction, but he himself is in need of one.
–“The Order of the Assembly 1”

If everyone extols all the other friends as though they are the greatest in the generation, the environment will affect him as a great environment, because quality is more important than quantity.
–“The Order of the Assembly 1”

Two is plural. Thus, if two friends sit together and think about how to increase the importance of the Creator, they already have the strength to receive great reinforcement in the greatness of the Creator, by way of their own awakening. For this act there is a subsequent awakening from the Creator, and they begin to feel the greatness of the Creator.
–“The Order of the Association”

The benefit from society is that it can introduce such an atmosphere that there will only be work in order to bestow.
–“The Importance of Society”

It is permitted, and even a must to enjoy from an act of bestowal. Therefore, one should focus on a single point—appreciating that. This is expressed in paying attention to whom I turn, to whom I am speaking, whose commandments am I keeping, and whose law am I studying. In other words, we must seek advice how to appreciate the Creator.
Before a person is awarded with illumination from above, one must seek likeminded people, who are also seeking to heighten the importance of the Creator, to be in touch with the Creator, and to receive help from the society.
–“The Order of the Association”

To be integrated with one another, everyone should annul himself before the others. This is done by seeing the merit of the friends, and not their faults. However, those who think that they are higher than the friends, cannot unite with them.
–“The Purpose of the Society 2”

Every student must feel that he is the smallest among the friends, and then he will be able to receive the appreciation of the greatness from everyone. This is because only the smaller can be impressed by what the greater one appreciates.
–“The Order of the Assembly 1”

When he sees that the friends are at a higher degree than his own, it elevates him.
–“Concerning Above Reason”

People who agree to unite in a group understand that there is no disparity of opinions among them. They understand the necessity of the love of others. Hence, each of them will be able to make concessions for others, and they will be able to unite around that.
–“Concerning Love of Friends”

By gathering people who all agree that they must achieve love of others, when they annul themselves before each other, they are all integrated in one another. Thus, each friend accumulates a great force, according to the greatness of the society, and then he can execute the love of others in actual fact.
–“They helped every one his friend”

A “righteous” is one who wishes to keep the rule, “love thy friend as thyself,” whose only aim is to exit self-love and take upon himself the nature of love of others.
–“According to What Is Explained Concerning Love Your Friend”

In Memory Of Rabash

Today is the day of remembrance for my Teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom Levi Ashlag – Rabash. We are all nourished by what we received from him. He was the only person who understood Baal HaSulam, who continued his path, and who passed the method on to several of his students. The fact that we are able to advance using Baal HaSulam’s method, to see, hear, feel and understand what he wrote, is possible only thanks to Rabash.

Rabash used to write an article a week, and we have over 400 of his articles. In them, he provides explanation of the entire science of Kabbalah, including everything that regards a person’s inner work. Through these articles, he has given us an opportunity to enter the sensation of the spiritual world. He explained the entire method systematically, simply and accessibly, in a form that people could easily connect to.

The reason why he often quotes the Torah, Talmud and other Kabbalistic sources is in order to connect us to the original sources and to help us understand how their authors (Kabbalists) thought. This is how they conveyed their sensations to us.

There’s no doubt that if it weren’t for Rabash’s books, we would not be able to connect to the writings of Baal HaSulam. Without Rabash’s explanations, it would be impossible for us to “open” Baal HaSulam’s books.

I am grateful to the Upper Force for sending me such a great Teacher, through whom we have received Kabbalah. His life’s work was a spiritual breakthrough into a new level and the revelation of Kabbalah’s method to us.

Baal HaSulam also stated this method in his articles, but they remained concealed.  Rabash took his father’s materials and rewrote them in a form that the world could understand. He also transmitted it orally to his students.

Rabash was the first Kabbalist in the entire history of Kabbalah who began openly accepting students. After a year of studying with Rabash, I gave several lectures at Berg’s center. The lectures weren’t for the general public, but for the instructors. After those lectures,  all the instuctors left the Berg center, because they understood that what they were doing there was not Kabbalah at all, but rather just business.

I brought them to study with Rabash, along with an entire group of young, secular people. Altogether there were about forty people. Rabash was 77 years old at the time, and he had spent his entire life living in Bnei Brak – a Jewish Orthodox community, with an overabundance of prohibitions and restrictions. But despite everything, he was not afraid to accept all of these new, secular young men to be his students!

These people weren’t planning to return to religion; they came to him to study Kabbalah exclusively. That is how he started teaching Kabbalah to secular young men from Tel Aviv! This was the revolution he made, and it steered our world toward correction. This was a completely new phenomenon, such that the entire history of Kabbalah has never seen. It was the beginning of large-scale dissemination of the science of Kabbalah, as those forty students continued his path.

Rabash was a great revolutionary. He possessed a tremendous inner power that enabled him to do this, in defiance of his Hassidic community and his relatives.

Everything I have, I received from him. Our group, Bnei Baruch (the Sons of Baruch) is named after him. And I believe that we truly will merit becoming his spiritual heirs.

Let his memory in us be blessed!

The Daily Direction 9.28.14

All our sins are not in our actions but rather in our intentions

The actions are rolled upon us according to how well we succeed in correcting our intentions of previous actions. All our work is in intentions to bestow, since change of intention completely alters the quality of deeds. Therefore, what we’ll get and how we’ll develop depends on our intentions in previous actions, events, and cases for which we have succeeded or, God forbid, haven’t succeeded, in instilling the correct intention - that is the dynamics.

Everything is derived from all past situations that we need to continue correcting, intentions in all kinds of cases that are given to us. We should learn these intentions from each other, grow stronger by helping each other and enter a society that will help us not forget about them. We need to gather strength from everyone, and if the connection between us is correct, so shall our intentions be, and we will be able through the Reforming Light’s influence, to demand intentions of bestowal. Nothing is given to us besides the opportunity to make the right decision and to choose the correct act - to invite the Reforming Light upon ourselves. Each act should end by me being certain that I’ve brought satisfaction to the Creator, regardless of how much or whether at all I sense that. That is called a good deed, a successful act. (Zohar, 6th minute)

For what purpose are you doing this for? (Workshop)

We discussed this yesterday, “The end of every deed must begin in a thought (conception).” For what purpose, in the first place, are you doing the deeds? We have to bring satisfaction to the Creator, like in all those examples of the host and the guest, the equality of form, adhesion, that is what we should reach. Therefore, I start with “The end of every deed begins in a thought,” before I do anything I need to think that bestowal to Him is the purpose, and that is what I need to reach. I want to be granted an opportunity to bring Him satisfaction by our actions. Whether he knows it or not, at least I’m aware of it, this is not important, I don’t even want to think about it now. If I’m able to think in that direction, I can finally begin something, otherwise not at all. (Zohar, 40th minute)

We are thinking about our friend Anatoly Ulyanov. The question is, what exactly should we be thinking of?

Only if I am advancing towards bestowal and we all depend on each other, and this part which is revealed between us as an ill person asking for correction from all other parts.

The Creator enlightening us, bringing this as an example, so that we may see that here we should take care about correction, for it is a part of our soul. We have to care about it, to think about it, and then it can get better. I know that I should be asking, demanding and praying, that’s it. And praying means examining myself and judging myself, whether or not are my intentions genuine and correct. Because if they are, we wouldn’t be in the situation where part of us is in this form, this state of trouble, that is a result of our general corruption. It is impossible to have a cell or an  isolated  organ sick within a body, that is a defect in a whole system. That is - we’re all sick and we are all to blame. There are reasons why it’s targeted on a particular person, as it is written that the “Tzadikkim” (Righteous) are the first in line for the correction.  

If you’re asking, we should feel this as a dangerous illness among us within our collective soul, (Zohar, 9th minute)

Working in Tens

I promise you that within a few weeks you will feel that you cannot do without a Ten. [Part D, 31 min]

Working within a ten, when my friend is talking, what kind of demand do I need to have in order for this process to work?

You should be completely immersed in him. At this moment you do not exist but rather you are truly within him.

And what then? So where is the "me?" When your time comes to speak, it will be after the integration with everyone, and out of this integration you will speak. In this way you will be precisely you.

Because you cancel yourself and you leave the "Mishcha de Chivya" (the skin of the snake), then you are talking “out of” the integration with them.

This is your proper body, your inner body, in which you are linked with the others, this is your soul.

"Talk about it," I can hear what the friends are saying, I am included in what they say, in their desires, in their hearts and their thoughts, in everything.

I forget about myself, I’m gone and lost in them, include myself within them. And then, when my time comes to speak, then of course I speak out of my integration with them, it's called that I purchase my holy body, my real body, which is included in all of them.

So what is it then, when I give up on it (on my holy body)?

This is exactly my heart of  stone, The "Mishcha de Chivya" (the skin of the snake), and now I am parted from him. [Part A, 48 min]

Blog Change notice

Due to the "New York Times Campaign", Rav's blog has been redirected and it is not refreshed in the usual manner, and due to the Holidays even on Sviva Tova there was nothing new posted recently.
So overall apologies for the large gaps in between posting, I will try to figure out how to continue the regular refresh of posts.

Only Together!!!

Life Behind The Walls Of An Aquarium

The perception of reality is a unique subject because we don’t understand it at all. If we were allowed to have several forms of perceiving reality, we could understand it by comparing them. But we live in one reality so it is difficult for us to evaluate it. What we see and feel is our only reality.

How can we discover where we truly are? Fish in an aquarium also don’t know what exists outside of it; they swim in some kind of limited space and don’t know anything more. This is how all animals and humans live in this world; how are we different from them?

But humans very much want to know where they are. Also of importance is can we change reality if we know more about it? Of course not, humanity has produced a multitude of theories about the nature of our reality, but nobody knows how correct they are. We need an objective scientific approach.

After all, no matter how much we are talking about a perception of reality; it is based only on our feelings and sensations. And who knows what exists outside of them? If I change the range of my vision, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching, then reality would be different.

It is known that even a dog that lives with a person perceives the world completely differently, through scents. Other animals perceive through warmth or cold, or by hearing. It follows that reality is our impressions of the world that surrounds us. Our senses perceive some kind of information about it and convey this through a multitude of filters. They convey it to us after many restrictions and changes. That is how we perceive the world in which we live.

The wisdom of Kabbalah says that essentially we are found in an ocean of the Upper Light; outside of it there is nothing. But in each one of us there is a desire to receive, a desire to enjoy, that imprints its impressions on a background of the white Light. And this impression is what we feel.

The desire to receive has a particular range of absorption, limited to five areas— seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching—in which it absorbs the Light and conveys impressions to us. So we feel the world just like that.

But it is possible to change this perception. It is not about just extending the range of perception for every sense: wearing glasses, putting on absorptive plates, sharpening smells or tastes through some chemical or physical influences. The wisdom of Kabbalah is not involved with the development of our physical senses; rather, it brings us closer to the true form of the perception of reality.

It is possible to approach the truth if we receive impressions not through the five corporeal senses, but through constructing senses from our desire to receive that are similar to the Light. This means that they have the characteristics of Light, the characteristics of bestowal, love, that are beyond us, beyond our ego. If we can rise above the ego that is given to us, then we can create characteristics that are like the Light from ourselves.

It follows that the ego was given to us so that we would build characteristics above it that are adapted to the Light. And then we will begin to feel a reality in which the Light is in control. We will feel it in those new characteristics that are created within us.

Kabbalah is involved with developing such characteristics within a person, helping him to build a new perception of reality. And when a person acquires it, he begins to feel how much his previous perception of reality was limited, temporary, and distorted.

To the degree that he changes his perception of reality, the person is himself changed. In fact the perception of reality is what defines the person.
[143694]
From the Convention In Chile “Day One” 7/30/14, Lesson 2

Science Has Placed Us On The Path Of Suffering

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”, section 41: The Zohar writes about the text “and those that seek Me shall find Me,” and asks, “Where does one find the Creator? They said that the Creator is found only in the Torah.”

We must thoroughly understand their words. It seems that the Creator is hidden only in corporeal things and conducts all the futilities of this world, which are outside the Torah. Thus, how can you say the opposite, that He hides Himself only in the Torah?

This means that we can never discover the right system, the true forces in nature that manage us, the higher management and oversight, nor the higher power that is at work in an action if we are not engaged in the inner Torah, which is the wisdom of Kabbalah, the correct  way. Even the science of the physical world cannot bring us closer to this.

By being involved with scientific development, a person inserts himself into the way of suffering; since he hopes and wants to reach a good life through scientific achievements, the opposite situation is created, and he only harms himself. And this is clear, for in this manner he doesn’t develop his Kelim (vessels) for discovery of the higher power which is good and beneficent.

It follows that science brings us to failure and diverts us from the right way. As much as we value and respect modern science, ultimately it must be understood and acknowledged that it leads us to the way of suffering. Certainly everything was planned from the start, for without discovering the evil it is impossible to reach the good. This is because the human intellect must discover its empty powerlessness.

But if from the days of the first Adam (man), from the first discovery of the wisdom of Kabbalah, humanity had accepted it as the solitary means for discovering the good and beneficent power, then it would have gone by the ideal way directly towards the goal of creation.

Then there would have been no need for scientific progress and the evolution of human society. A person would have been involved in his spiritual development, whereas the compulsory physical work would have been only for meeting the requirements of bestial existence, to feed his “beast.” And all the remaining developments would have been only for the need of developing the Adam within us.
[142309]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Daily Direction 9.24.14

A person that works well feels the revelation of evil and he is happy with it  

The month of Elul is the month of judgment, when a person judges himself, examines himself, what did he attain in the past year, how does he arrive towards the conclusion of the year and to what does he strive to reach. If the year went well, if he worked well, if he attracted the Light that Reforms, and he was inside the group, in the studies, in short, he advanced. If he advanced correctly and properly then he reaches the month of Elul, before Rosh Hashanah (the New Year), broken, feeling that he has many shattered vessels, he has a lot to correct, he is a big sinner, and he is overjoyed. He is happy that he discovered it, that now he has a material so he can correct himself, to reach a "Shana Hadassah" (a new year), a new change, a new degree, and that the evil inclination is revealed in him, (“I created the evil inclination"), and now all he needs is the "Torah," (the “spice”), and then he can rise by correcting the evil to good, to a new degree.

Therefore, a person that worked well during the year feels the revelation of evil and he is happy with it. There is work during the nights, during the mornings, during the day; that’s how we feel ourselves in advancing towards a new degree that Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) symbolizes. [Last part min 1]   

If you don't know what it means to turn to the Creator, it's a sign that you don't know what it means to turn to the friend

To the extent you will connect to the ten and invest forces in the connection between you, you'll begin to understand it means to turn to the Creator. You'll begin to feel it means to exit yourself, to rise, to be outside of yourself and in the others, and there is no difference between the others and the Creator. If you don't know what it means to turn to the Creator, it's a sign that you don't know what it means to turn to the friend, it's the same, there is no difference. The person, who exits himself toward someone else, wants to dress in him, and by that he loses himself. It's the same technique whether it is the friend or the Creator. So try to make an effort towards the friends and then you'll reach the Creator; you will feel that it's the same. This is why the shattering of the vessels took place and all of our work is that way, from the love of the people to the love of the Creator, and in the love of people you have an examination, visible results. [Part 1 Min 22]