One Needs To Target The Goal

Question: How should we deal with the lack of faith in the revelation of the Creator that is caused by many failed attempts?

Answer: We have many attempts ahead of us, and I don’t promise that they will be successful.

But why do you think that they were not beneficial? From failed attempts you accumulate the required potential of despair of your own power and at the same time bitterness that you must achieve the goal, but you can’t, and therefore you turn to the Creator. It is impossible to turn to Him until you are sure that it is within your ability to commit Him to do something, if you would want, would demand, and would shout out.

We progress in the spiritual world in two mutually contradictory directions that mutually reject each other: One of the lines is complete perfection (the attribute of the Light), and the second line is the lack of complete perfection (the attribute of the desire, the vessel), and they need to be compatible.

That is our inner problem, an internal split. We exist between two states: one state is, “If the Creator doesn’t help me, then who will,” and the other state, “If not me for myself, then who?”

Our failed attempts are not just failures but are accumulated conditions of the necessary and correct rise to the Creator, i.e., when you feel that on one hand, He doesn’t help you without your having to cry to Him, and on the other hand, only He can help you if you shout to Him. The third point is that your cry to Him depends on if He will direct you to Him. And the fourth point is that no matter how much He directs you, in any case, it depends only on you.

It is such an internal conflict that splits us, like in sites, when two crosses diverge, one here and the other there, and you can’t succeed in any way to bring them together. There is only one way to align them, if you look ahead, not at them, but at the Creator, seeking Him for the sake of bestowal, and then they merge. Here we need the third component.

It is said: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” When you merge the three components, then you reach the goal.

And how is it possible to long for the Creator, if you don’t see Him? How can you correctly aim yourself if you only have two sites and the third, the goal, which you need to correctly target, is unseen. Where do you aim yourself? The answer is to the group. It is facing you. As you completely direct yourself to the group, to bestowal, to adhesion with it, incorporation with it, you aim exactly at the Creator.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

The Menorah Is A Symbol Of A Great Idea

The Torah, “Exodus,” “Terumah,” 25:31, 25:37: And you shall make a menorah of pure gold. The menorah shall be made of hammered work; its base and its stem, its goblets, its knobs, and its flowers, shall all be one piece with it…And you shall make its lamps seven, and he shall kindle his so that they shed light towards its face.

The Menorah (lamp) is the embodiment of the good corrected ego (made of gold). It’s very hard to design and to consolidate the Menorah (to correct the ego so that it will shine as the Light), including the cups and the flowers that are made of one piece of metal.

Every item, every human egoistic attribute has to be of a certain size and shape so that all the features of the Menorah will resemble the Creator in all its seven parts: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. When Malchut becomes like all these seven attributes, it becomes totally like the Creator, as its egoistic matter, the despised gold metal, becomes the attribute of bestowal and actually becomes the means to light, the means to burn for the Creator, for the Light.

The Menorah symbolizes the ego that has become similar to the Creator that radiates Light by itself, although it isn’t naturally a source of light. Besides there is also the oil and the wicks, but the resemblance is achieved by the vessel for the oil and the light that comes out of it. So the symbol of the Menorah is still a great idea in itself, when the lowest form of the ego, (the gold) becomes the most sublime form of bestowal.

The seven candles of the Menorah form on the attribute of bestowal, Zeir Anpin, the ideal image of the Creator. This is called the inverse image of Adam, meaning similar to the Creator. By correcting the ego, Malchut, in the seven phases of the attribute of bestowal, connects totally to the Creator and by this action, Malchut attains the end of its correction.

On the whole, the Torah speaks about nothing but that. It only says which desires and according to which order we have to resemble the Creator, this is the whole plan, the spiritual work that is given in the Torah, which stems from the Hebrew word “Ora’a” which means “instruction.”
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 8/28/13

Belonging To The Absolute Truth

Question: How do we feel the Creator? Is there a feeling of gratitude that He created us or something else?

Answer: If you have no spiritual vessels, then there is no sensation of the Creator, and it is impossible to explain this.

The sensation of the Creator is a feeling of belonging to the absolute truth, beyond all doubts, above your problems, and seperate from all your petty calculations! You discover an “absolute” perfection. And this perfection is beyond all of your previous estimations.

Question: Does it follow that this feeling is detached from my connection with the friends?

Answer: On one hand, this is detached, and on the other hand, in spite of it all, through a link with the friends, you feel a slight touch of the sensation of the Creator. As it is said, “Exodus 33:23”: “And you will see My back, but My face shall not be seen.” But you can already guess that this is something beyond your Kelim, beyond your properties. So the question is: How is it possible to evaluate something beyond my Kelim? But this is how the Ohr Makif, the Achoraim de Elyon is revealed.

But essentially, this is the middle line, without it, without this momentary contact with the Creator, all of your attainments are not worth anything. Even if we were to attain total peace and the Garden of Eden on the face of the Earth and everything were to seem wonderful, this entire idyll is worth nothing. For in the end, we need to attain some kind of affiliation with the upper force that is beyond us.

This is like an electric wire that is only required to reveal the electricity. The electricity doesn’t “flow” through the wire; rather, it is passed around the wire as the energy of an electromagnetic field; that is, the energy passes next to the wire and not within it. And the wire is so that the energy can be revealed next to it. That is how it also is with the friends; this is the material through which the Creator must be revealed.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/13, The Book of Zohar

A Wonderful View From The Upper Floor

“Circles” are bestowals that arrive from above. But when this bestowal comes to us, to the desire to receive, which is not equivalent to its form and is unable to accommodate its characteristics, then it is perceived by us as something bad. It is like when your mother forces you to do something that you don’t want to. She is bestowing good to you, but it seems as if it is something bad.

Our role is to pass through so many “lines,” so many capillaries in our collective body, that we will reach each and every cell. Every living body works like this. All of creation, the still, vegetative, and animate exist in complete and wondrous harmony between “circles” and “lines.” We only need to correct a person’s attitude.

And this correction must begin from below, from the lowest strata. We see that changes have already begun from above, the governments will be obligated to make “circles” for the distribution of benefits to everyone, like social security, and so forth. But all this comes from above in the form of “circles”—as in the upper worlds, so also in our world. A corrected nation is one that somehow organizes its work in the form of a circle regarding the people.

Therefore, we need to begin integral education from the lowest strata. First of all, this is because they suffer more than everyone, and improving their condition is possible only though the Light that Reforms. They have nothing else to rely on, and therefore we can reach them.

Besides this, correction must be from below to above, from the smallest and simplest deficiencies and desires, which begin to be linked in the form of a circle. When I am linked with a group of ten, with my group, then I fill it with this. The group, which transforms into a complete unit, a “1,” rises to a higher level, to a new qualitative level, and begins to work as a line in the circle that exists on a higher level.

We always rise like this. A circle that is constructed by us on a lower level is equivalent to a direct one at the next stage. That is how we rise all the time, by transforming the line into a circle.

At the moment that we begin to be linked to a circle, we reach wholeness and receive bestowal, the Light. We don’t lack anything. As Baal HaSulam writes in the article, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” a person sees friends suffering from diseases of poverty, and after correction he suddenly sees that they are all successful, healthy, and rich. A change like this takes place at the time of ascent to a new level, a new state.

We do not understand how this is possible, but it will happen. There is no other way to correct the world except to correct the perception. Infinite bestowal exists in the world, we only need to ascend and see the entire world from a higher level. Don’t try to make some kind of change or correction to the world on your level, this will not help. The more you invest, the more you will suffer and lose.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

The World Is Making A Transition From Reception To Bestowal

Our world is becoming more and more “round”; this means that the collective mutual link between everyone is being discovered; everyone influences everyone.

Ten thousand years ago you would have attacked your neighbor, you would have killed and eaten him. Five thousand years later you would have already stopped killing the neighbors, rather you would have understood that it was better to enslave them.

Another few thousand years passed and you would have attacked your neighbor and made him a worker since a slave was no longer worthwhile. Everything is established according to what is useful to the desire to receive. But today things are no longer the way they used to be. If you were to attack someone and conquer him today, you would begin to feed him and be concerned for him. Therefore, in our times wars are not worthwhile.

We see how the world, without understanding on its own, is gradually transitioning entirely from reception to bestowal! All of our systems (economics, health, and so forth) must transform to be more “round”; we have no other choice. Governments are compelled to distribute money to their people so that everyone will have something to eat. Nations have now transformed into social security institutions and welfare bureaus. Whether it wants to or not, every nation must transform into a system that is primarily concerned about its ordinary citizens.

All this is a result that we are approaching “circles,” spherical vessels. Otherwise we cannot exist in conditions like these. But in this kind of form we will not be released from problems because these changes are made from above, from the government, by the circles. We must do this from below, through correction by the person, through the “straight line.”

The way of correction from above is a long way of “recognition of evil.” As much as this seems nice to us today, that a nation is concerned for its citizens so that everyone will get all that they require, in the end, this will bring immense destruction. Ultimately, we must discover that we must begin correction from below. There must be bestowal from the side of the person below, therefore, we must turn to the most failed strata, take care of them, and bring to them the method of correction.

“Circles” is the discovery of the higher power, the Upper Light, the upper Kli. And these become a great threat over us. All the forces of nature are revealed in the form of a circular shape. A person must work in the form of a straight line.

A tsunami wave that comes doesn’t take into account if you are a good or a bad person, rich or poor, instead it wipes out everything in its path. That is how the circles work. And we must become a straight line. Though the straight line is opposite the circle, when it becomes the bestower, it actually fills the circles. With this we transform ourselves into a force that fills the Creator. The guest must fill the host, just as the host wants to fill the guest. This is what is called reaching adherence through equivalence of form and equivalence of deeds.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

What Is The Center Of The Group?

Question: What is the meaning of the center of the group? Is it an internal component a person has, including our impressions from our collective actions and from the workshops?

Answer: The center of the group is what we constantly analyze and clarify, exploring it in our attributes, in our view: Where is it, how is it characterized, what should I yearn for? I have to feel what the center of the group is internally.

It is very blurry, like looking at a target that is constantly moving and which I cannot focus on through a site. However, if I determine it clearly, it means that I have come in contact with the attribute of love and bestowal.

Question: Through which concrete actions do I find the connection with the center of the group?

Answer: Such a connection is determined by a person’s need for it in order to connect to the Creator and to bring His revelation to the world. In the article “The Messiah’s Shofar” and in other articles too, it says that Israel, those who yearn straight to the Creator, will not leave the exile and will not attain a connection with the Creator unless they bring the whole world to it.

Now, the time has finally come for us to incorporate the external ego of the masses, and we must demand the Creator to fill it. At the same time we can only be the conductors, the point of adhesion between the Creator and the rest of the world; the revelation of the Creator in the world is our mission.

Question: How can I determine whether I disseminate from the center of the group or not?

Answer: You should feel that yourself. If you disseminate and at the same time constantly fear not leaving the center of the group, then everything is fine.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

Union And Mutual Guarantee

Question: What is the difference between a union (Brit) and mutual guarantee (Arvut)?

Answer: Union is a preliminary connection, prior to mutual guarantee, when we just agree to be in connection with each other.

Mutual guarantee is a state when we enter each other’s desires, work together in them: I work on your desires, you on mine, and we provide each other with full mutual support.

I become your guarantor, take you under my wing, think not about myself but about how to provide you with all my resources. And you see what I need and will think how to provide me with your resources.

This mutual support when we mutually fulfill each other’s desires is called mutual guarantee. But at the beginning, it is characterized by establishing union: an agreement is signed, subject to further realization. In principle, this and that work together.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/23/13

Protection, So You Won’t Burn

Question: Why does a person go through such difficult states that show how low and distant one is from spirituality, yet we are still required to be happy?

Answer: A person isn’t shown more than he can bear. If he were shown his real state, he would simply burn like in a short circuit. So we are constantly held between certain limits, between two points, so that a person will be able to bear it. It is like a fuse that burns when the current is too strong. As long as the current is normal, it transmits it. Its role is to hold on until a critical situation occurs and then it burns out, but it keeps the system intact.

Everything has a certain limit, and so from above, a person is gradually shown the AHPof the upper level, its posterior. If he is suitable for it as a result of his own exertion, then he is ready to ascend to the next level.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/24/13, Writings of Rabash

A Perfect Adapter

Question: In the modern era we must put ourselves in line with the wishes of the wide audience, whereas before, students had to become similar in qualities with their teacher. How is this combined?

Answer: We reveal the Creator in the center of the group. In our relations, we are the upper, and He is the upper above the upper. And besides that, outside of us, there is a wide audience—the lower, the people or humanity.

Accordingly, we (Bnei Baruch – BB) must apply joint efforts together in work between ourselves, as well as to address the outer circles, adapting ourselves according to them.

To do this, we split into two parts: the seven lower Sefirot (ZAT) and the three higher (GAR), and we represent Bina and take the appropriate form at the top and at the bottom.

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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Warm Union

Question: What do we give the public (the 99%) in order to receive their desires and to provide them with the Light?

Answer: We organize an external group, for example, a group of ten. They have to discover the warmth and the connection between them. What is the warm connection that the 99% should reach?

We explain to them, teach them, that by the general connection between them they attain a good life. They may not attain it immediately, but they already begin to feel this warmth, love, comfort, and a better life. Here in the circle, life is better and everyone is attracted to its Light like butterflies. This is the atmosphere we should create.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us that all of creation is a desire. So we have to guide the desire of the external group correctly. Today their desires are divided to the standard range of food, sex, family, money, respect, knowledge, and all kinds of nonsense and confusions that they are all lost in. We, on the other hand, want to guide their desire to unity, to connection, so that they will simply feel good.

When we worry about them, we increase the warmth, the deficiency, and we are incorporated in it feeling it as our own. Then we attain the desired connection in the group between us, that same warmth, and add it to their warmth. We continue to raise it to theCreator, although He is actually among us, and then we receive an answer.

Our initial deficiency is Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and the deficiency we receive from the public is called AHP (AHP). We raise the two deficiencies and the Creator answers both. Thus we want to bestow back upon the people. We raise their deficiency to the Creator since we want to bestow upon Him by that. Our group Bnei Baruch (BB) is in the middle wanting to bestow upon the Creator and humanity, while we actually don’t need anything and we are Hafetz Hesed.

Thus we form the exact structure that is described in Talmud Eser Sefirot. The first seven parts of the book describes the development of the vessels and the shattering, and starting from the 8^th part until the 16^th part it is about the correction.

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From the One America “Virtual Convention” Day One 11/16/13, Lesson 1

The Fundamental Difference Between The Mafia And Spiritual Brotherhood

Question: How will my impression of the Creator be different from the sensation that I have today in my connection with the friends?

Answer: There is a qualitative difference between the mood of a simple unity with friends and the unity within which you will reveal the Creator. This is the difference between the Soviet-style communism and the altruistic communism about which Baal HaSulam writes.

We must strive for connection, equality, up to complete unity and mutual guarantee as one man with one heart. And this mutual bestowal between us must not be in order to improve our own lives. We should not turn into a “mafia.” That is why Baal HaSulam writes that communistic principles in an egoistic manifestation, as it was in Russia, were very close to Nazism.

Indeed, Russia and Germany had a very good relationship before the war. If they had not shared the border, they would have become allies in this war, like Germany and Japan. Indeed, by their nature, these regimes were very similar. Only due to the proximity of their borders and the plan to capture that territory, they turned into enemies.

Therefore, it is so important to aim oneself at “Israel, Torah, and the Creator” in connection within the group. The Creator is the ultimate goal, that is, this whole world, the entire human society, still, vegetative and animate nature are included in man; this entire common general image of the human being as a small world should be directed to a higher force, the source of our life.

We have only one point of contact with the higher force: it gave birth to us; creation, if we are not directed to the Creator, will eventually arrive at the same picture as in Nazism or Soviet communism, because this unity would be just for our own benefit. We will not come out of the egoistic properties, but will only organize life in our neighborhood, city, and the world in the form in which we all feel good.

But it never ends well. We have already seen such examples in history: utopians, kibbutzim, etc. After all, if this force does not come out of our plane, then to whom will I give? It will turn out again: “You to me and me to you.” This will have no real result.

I cannot give to you, and you to me because our difference will be manifested immediately. As the saying goes, “there is only one step from love to hate.” Even people who love each other should quarrel sometimes to add a bit of “pepper” in their relationships. The problem is that we lack the middle line.

Even if we achieve complete mutual bestowal where everyone gives to everyone else, we will not be able to balance these relations without the participation of a certain higher component from another level. We need the middle line, otherwise this illusion will explode and end in war.

We can perform an experiment with a loving couple, create conditions of a heavenly life for them and after a while see what happens to them. This form of relationship is not viable and cannot exist for a long time. To do this, you need to be angels and not people, that is, to not have egoistic desires.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/13, The Zohar

Work For Introverts And Extroverts

Question: You said that people who actively disseminate must be those who possess a special yearning for connection and unity in agroup. Do we need to work on creating special conditions for this purpose or is it possible not to pressure those who don’t see special meaning in connection?

Answer: There are people who have a skill for dissemination, but they don’t have a skill for work with connection. Dissemination is realized widely, and people who are extroverted are particularly involved in this, while connection, this is work for introverts. These are absolutely different vectors, different directions.

I can even bring specific examples of who among us is inclined to what. There are people who can disseminate wonderfully by going out to the external public, yet they cannot work on connection in the group; others are involved with this much better. Everyone has different traits and we must use both of these and others.  As a result, the Upper Lightwill create a common property between them in which the first spiritual phenomena will begin to be felt.
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From the Talk about Group and Dissemination 10/22/13

The Language Of The Revelation Of The Creator

Baal HaSulam “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”: The names, appellations, and Gematrias belong entirely to the wisdom of Kabbalah. The reason they are found in the other languages, too, is that all the languages are included in the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is so because these are all particular cases that the other languages must be assisted with.

The language of Kabbalah is the main language of revealing the Creator. In principle, all four languages of attainment are intended for this. However, the other three languages (Tanakh , Halachah and Haggadah) are “accompanying,” they are included in the language of Kabbalah but exist by themselves to add different touches by their presentation.

Thus there is one language for the revelation of the Creator, containing four facets; the most important one is the language of Kabbalah. It includes everything, it is higher than the rest, and it is included in everything. All the symbols, all the forms of presentation, everything we read in the books of Kabbalists are written by the language that they had created to explain the revelation of the Creator to the human being. Everything is intended only for this.

Therefore, as Baal HaSulam writes in “The Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” the one who opens books written by Kabbalists of different generations, i.e., by people who are in spiritual attainment, and use it not for this purpose, he brings adverse consequences upon himself. Instead of praising the approaching dawn like a rooster, he becomes like a bat, living only in the darkness and strongly resisting the light of day, which is already approaching for us.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Purposeful Exertion

Question: How do we distinguish between egoistic exertion and purposeful exertion?

Answer: I exert myself purposefully outside myself according to the intention and the goal. I bring my whole exertion to the center of the group like a bird that brings everything to her nest. I want everyone to enjoy this and our pleasure is in discovering how much we can delight the Creator.

Even if we don’t discover this, what’s important is that we have a chance to do something that brings Him contentment. The main thing is that we have the intention that allows us to do this and to reach this. The Creator doesn’t even have to know about us as long as we can bestow.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 09/27/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

The Environment Makes A Human From An Ape

The environment—from the moment that the ape came down from the tree and became a human, it is everything  This was written about in the book, The Tree of Life by the Ari, 400 years before Darwin. Beginning from that moment on, they already had become not just a band of apes but had transformed into being a kind of “society,” a society of individuals. In this, each one is a personality by himself, and in spite of it all, everyone is connected together; there are various types of unique links between them which are evolving all the time.

This was an alliance for the sake of a particular goal: defense against predatory animals, defense against other bands of apes, and so forth. Thus a social structure began to evolve more and more.

Human evolution is possible only due to the environment! There are legends about the existence of Bigfoot living somewhere in the Himalayas. But why do we describe him as a wild man with a height of two and a half meters, covered with hair and not think that he could be subtle, beautiful, and good? Because he lives alone! Perhaps he has a family, but this is still a form of existence on an animal level and not like a human society.

Therefore, if you have chosen some environment, you must become integrated within it. You must arouse yourself with jealousy all the time; this is the most effective means. It is necessary to be jealous of others, how much they have already advanced, are active, running everywhere, and internalizing the goal. If you begin to be jealous of them, then you will surely succeed.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/13, Shamati #64 “From Lo Lishma to Lishma”

Belonging To A Kabbalist

Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”:Clearly, when one ponders and contemplates words of the Torah that pertain to the revelation of the Creator to our fathers, they bring the examiner more Light than when examining practical matters.

This is how Baal HaSulam recommends we read books that tell us about the relationship between a human being and the revelation. The articles, letters, The Study of the Ten Sefirot, and the Sulam commentary to The Book of Zohar, in fact everything we received from Baal HaSulam and Rabash are books that are especially for us about the revelation of the Creator to the created being. They are written in different styles but they are all about this.

Some of them explain things directly and describe the spiritual work psychologically, so to speak, like the letters and the articles. In other articles we read about the connection between the wisdom of Kabbalah and other sciences, but they are also about the revelation of the Creator to a person. We see this especially in works talking about TheBook of Zohar and in The Study of the Ten Sefirot.

All these books and texts were written during the drawing of the Light. Kabbalists discovered the Light in different states and levels and wrote accordingly. There isn’t one word or one letter that was written before the writer had attained the specific state that he described in the text.

So when we read these texts, we can receive the power in them. It is by these texts that we connect to the writers, and then we can draw and enjoy the Light that Reforms, but this is only if we yearn to resemble them in their simple faith and receive everything that they have. While reading his writings, I want to be like the Kabbalist, to annul myself, to belong to him, and by that I turn on the Light that he has prepared for me.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/19/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of Kabbalah and Its Essence“