So That The Creator Will Work On Us

The Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 33:21-33:23: And the Lord said: “Behold, there is a place with Me, and you shall stand on the rock. And it shall be that when My glory passes by, I will place you into the cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand, and you will see My back but My face shall not be seen.”

“And you will see My back” means that the lower system can connect only with the posterior (Achoraim) of the upper system.

“The rock” are the discernments in a person’s ego that begin to acquire the right attributes and a person can hide in them.

The expression “and I will cover you with My hand” refers to a special concealment when a person can look at the upper through its posterior and connect to it, but in a state of concealment on the part of the Upper. This connection isn’t fulfilled as a result of bestowal from Above, but as a result of the right preparation on the part of a person. TheCreator does everything else.

Thus, all our work is called “God’s work” (Avodat Hashem), while a person does the preparation. If a person is ready, the Creator fulfills his request.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

How Can I Measure How Close I Am To The Teacher?

Question: One student may think that he is close to the teacher but may not be close and it can also be the other way around; one may think that he is far from the teacher but in fact is close to him. How can we measure that?

Answer: We don’t measure this according to what a student thinks but according to the opportunities that he had to subdue himself against his will and to the efforts he made in doing so. Closeness, just like other things, is measured according to the effort that is made above our ego.

We can only measure things by our ego. Measure is determined by how much do I have: how I can take my desires and weigh them like weights on a scale.

Everything depends on self-annulment. Don’t expect to reach some tough static system that has been stabilized once and already exists. The work we have to do is continuous, constant, according to three states: submission, differentiation, and sweetening, which is the constant work of the lower with regard to the upper, of a person with regard to thegroup, of a group with regard to the teacher.

Question: Is it true that if a person fails to connect to his teacher when the teacher is alive, it will be very difficult for him to do so afterward?

Answer: I don’t think it’s even possible to do so afterward. Try to connect to Baal HaSulam now or to any other great Kabbalist! This world was created in order to enable us to reach a corporeal connection, so that we will be able to perceive the upper in some way. If we have no corporeal contact with the upper, how can you hold on to Him? Now there is the seemingly corporeal form of the teacher before you, some corporeal representation with which you can come in contact. You can already connect to this image, bestow upon him, and serve him. Thus, you acquire a place by him according to your efforts. It says that if the groom is a great man and he receives a ring as a present from his bride, it’s as if he has given it to her. If you really want to serve and to bestow, you feel that you receive. The same relations should be among the friends, and each one should feel this way with regards to the others.

Question: When do I connect to the teacher, is it before transcending the Machsom(barrier) or afterward?

Answer: You will not transcend the Machsom if you don’t annul yourself before the teacher. We are here in order to establish a system that will take on a form above theMachsom. If this system isn’t made of the relations that are necessary above theMachsom, how can you transcend it? You don’t transcend the border to the spiritual world by marching along, but by the connections between us, by overcoming the Machsom that separates us.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

A Ladder Of Love Of Others

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee):“One sinner destroyeth much good.” This is because it has already been explained (Item 20) that the impression that comes to a person when engaging in Mitzvot between man and God is completely the same as the impression he gets when engaging in Mitzvotbetween man and man. He is obliged to perform all the Mitzvot Lishma (for Her name), without any hope for self-love, meaning that no light or hope returns to him through his trouble in the form of reward or honor, etc. Here, in this exalted point, the love of the Creator and the love of his friend unite and actually become one (see Item 15). Thus he affects a certain measure of advancement on the ladder of love for others in all the people of the world in general.

Thus we see how accurate these conditions are: bestowal, nature, the Creator who demands that we go through the phases of the evolution of our ego until we totally drown in it, filled with the egoistic evil on all four levels. In addition, the shattering that began in our roots should be fully completed and we should begin to discover its outcomes.

If a person really wants to advance in spirituality, which means towards bestowal, he begins to gradually and very slowly discover that these conditions are very difficult, practically impossible, and of course unbearable. It is because a person must perform continuous actions, use every opportunity he gets, and look for additional actions of bestowal upon others, out of love of others. At the same time, a person should feel happy and elated despite his feeling when he actually lacks everything!

We should understand that this is actually called spirituality: receiving no reward but acting only for the sake of others. If it were for the sake of the Creator, then one could agree to do something since He is great and rules everything.

It is respectable to be connected to Him, to be close to Him, and to bestow upon Him. But when we speak about bestowal upon others and not the Creator, which means upon any person in this world whom I need to delight, to make feel good, and please by my efforts, it seems as an impossible mission.

At this point we realize that only the Surrounding Light can do this, can bring about such a change, and that this action is essential because I have nothing and I cannot escape it. This is really the goal of creation and the justice of the upper, and I need the Creator’s help because without Him I cannot do anything.

Eventually I agree and understand that this is the upper justice and that this is the way it has to be, despite the fact that I am totally against it. I am ready to constantly ask for the upper force to come and correct and change me so I will seemingly cease to exist and will only serve all humanity, both my enemies and my loved ones.

There shouldn’t be any difference in my attitude towards the lowliest and the worst person in the world and my attitude towards the Creator. Only when I attain absolute love for the created beings will I reach the love of the Creator. After all, the Creator has to be revealed among everyone.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/14

Concerning The Crossroads

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 69: When one increases one’s toil in the internality of the Torah and its secrets, to that extent, one makes a virtue of the internality of the world—which are Israel —soar high above the externality of the world, which are the nations of the world. And all the nations will acknowledge and recognize Israel’s merit over them.

In the end, if we explain our message to the world together with the developmental process, then everything will proceed softly, nicely, and smoothly.

But if we don’t become a “conduit” for the influence of the Light that Reforms, then this Light will influence and awaken the desires to receive in the usual way. Then the nations of the world will not feel the power of good, bestowal, and understanding; they will not feel the goal from us. Instead, to the degree that the desire to receive increases in them, rioting and clashes will begin between them, after that it will be directed at the people of Israel in particular.

In this manner, we stand at a crossroads: Either we succeed in conveying to the world the line of connection with the Light, or as usual, the Light will act on the ego of each and every person, and then everyone will really begin to go crazy, will want to kill, “eat” each other, until it happens actively…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Desperate Attempts To Decipher The Rav

Question: If a Kabbalist lives in two worlds, in the physical world and in the spiritual world, then how are the physical and spiritual divided within him? Does the physical influence the decisions and behavior of a Kabbalist?

Answer: According to my experience I can say that it’s impossible to understand this from the outside. A person doesn’t see anyone outside of himself. He always sees everything through his eyes, through his brain, through his desire to receive, through his heart. And therefore he never sees another person as he is, rather only through his filter.

All the more so when he looks at his Rav, he cannot decipher where the spirituality and the physicality are here. He doesn’t know the percentage that the physical enters into the spiritual with his Rav . The lower cannot make these calculations regarding the higher.

Understanding is possible only if you have an internal “judicial” system within you identical to that which is in the higher. But if you don’t have that system, then how can you judge someone? So this is impossible.

It’s even impossible to achieve this with yourself, all the more so someone else; this is something completely unknown. We see only the images that are portrayed within us. Therefore we need to go with faith above reason with regard to every person, and certainly with regard to the Rav. WITH regard to the Rav there is a relationship on a much higher level because in this case our ego portrays for us all kinds of decisions, actions, and thoughts that always transform everything in our favor and make life easier for us.

Therefore, I don’t see any other possibility beside following the Rav with eyes shut and doing everything possible, as it is said, (Ecclesiastes 9:10) “Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do.” And it’s also the same thing regarding a friend, for in this way we hold the friend as higher, like a Rav.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

A Closed Tap Due To Incompatible Attributes

Question: If a student is connected his teacher, can a student do something against the teacher’s will, consciously or by mistake, and thus turn off his spiritual tap? How does this system work?

Answer: The tap will be turned off in any case because the law of the lack of equivalence of form operates. In that case there cannot be a connection between us and there is a breach. Now this connection has to be renewed and it depends on what caused the breach, on how I caused it. Do I have to go through the four stages of correction, do I have to feel the depth of the upper’s greatness, the recognition of exile, which means the absolute disconnection?

I may have been wrong by mistake and I may have done it on purpose. The way the sin was committed makes the whole difference. There are cases in which after committing a murder a person escapes to a city of refuge or is sentenced to death, and there are cases when nothing is done to a person when it occurred during a military conflict or if defending oneself from an attack by someone armed with a knife. There are different cases, but this is related to correction, to the reconstruction of the connection.

If I don’t have the same desire as my teacher and I don’t delight him in any way, I am simply not connected to him in any way. If I want to delight my teacher in order to receive something in return, I am in contact with him but this connection is according to the Surrounding Light. I establish it, but in the meantime, in an alternative manner, not directly. I cannot relate to my teacher directly and delight him. I delight him only so that I will benefit from him, which means in order to receive, but in fact I want to delight him and through him to delight the Creator.

I plan this chain, but in the meantime I don’t know how to do it. It’s as if I have already chosen the right direction according to my capability, according to my attributes. This is called working indirectly, between GE and AHP, but in the meantime, I have no such connection. I don’t annul myself before the upper, but am connected to Him through the Surrounding Light. It is only if I cannot be in direct contact with Him according to my nature, which means that I am compelled.

But if it isn’t clear that I work against his will, there is no hope that I will receive anything from him. This is how we begin to feel that we have a different, new mind. It’s as if I stop making any accounts on the level of this world, according to my common sense, with my thoughts and my solutions, since this account is totally incompatible with our system.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson “Teacher”

A Great Desire Means A Great Intention

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 65:You already know that there is an inverse relation between Lights and vessels: in the Kelim, the Higher ones grow first (see Item 62), which is why the first were more complete in the practical part than the last. But with the Lights, where the lower ones enter first, the last are more complete than the first.

Question: What is the meaning of the “practical part”? Does it refer to practical Mitzvot(commandments)?

Answer: These are Mitzvot that we fulfill between us on a physical level because our intentions are not yet sufficiently revealed. We don’t have a desire that is deep enough yet.

The same thing is also typical of the evolution of humanity. With time we gradually advance from physical work to mental work, to more delicate areas, whether it’s precise mechanics, nanotechnology, biology, etc.

This is already the work of the heavy vessels, those that have a great Aviut (thickness) of the desire. When you resist it, there is a whole variety of Lights that match the current depths of your ego. You begin to work with the Lights, with the intentions, with the delicate but strong vessels, like with a laser beam instead of manual instruments. Even the thought itself becomes a means that allows us to change the world, and we are already close to it.

Before, when we had a small desire we couldn’t penetrate the inner part of the world and discover all its components. Without a great evil inclination we couldn’t divide, classify, and organize it

There is the practical work and there is the work in our intention: the former is always inGE, while the latter is in AHP. As long as the vessels are pure, on the Aviut level of the root phase, phase one and two, there is an advantage to the actions. In other words, the intention in this state is called an action. It says: “Do everything that is in your power.”

This action isn’t performed manually, but the intention is small. In the meantime it isn’t supported by the great thickness of the desire and isn’t established on top of the resistance. I don’t establish an opposite intention to what is revealed inside me yet.

On the other hand, the real intention rides on top of the strongest desire on the third and fourth level of Aviut. This is where the real ego is concealed, against which I must work. It’s no small thing anymore. When a small child obeys his mother even when he doesn’t want to, it’s one thing, but if you ask a 15-year-old boy who already feels mature enough and overcomes the strongest inner resistance to do so, it’s a totally different thing. This is the difference between an action and an intention, and this has to do with both theMitzvot of do and don’t do.

Question: So what, in this sense, are the physical actions that we perform in the group: duties, etc.?

Answer: These actions are also considered according to the intention. It says thatMitzvot don’t need an intention, which means the right intention of in order to bestow. But still everything is considered according to the intention, even if it’s egoistic for the time being but goal oriented.

“I want to reach the Creator.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, to be good.”

“But to be good is in order to bestow.”

“So I want to act in order to bestow!”

The truth is that I have no idea what bestowal is and I only say that I want it, but it’s enough in order to be part of the correction.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Wholeness And Deficiency In One Partzuf

Question: What delights the Creator more: holding a workshop with friends or reading The Book of Zohar together?

Answer: In the workshop, together with the friends, we clarify in our mind and heart our deficiencies and our vessels. We awaken and activate them, so we have to discuss, feel, and turn them around in different directions. So the workshop is good and beneficial for our inner work. During the half-hour workshop, a person has many thoughts and he delves into himself trying things one way or another, knowing and not knowing. A workshop is the preparation of our vessel, our desire, as if we dig into ourselves, clarifying what we have inside, what happens to us in there.

But while reading The Book of Zohar, we have to feel a deficiency, on the one hand, and wholeness on the other hand. During this time we are in the source of the Light of Infinity, and through our connection with it, we have to feel that we are whole. But at the same time, we have to feel a deficiency because we haven’t managed to use the Infinite Light correctly. This means that we should feel these two things at the same time.

In order to discover all the Light of The Zohar, we have to go through all the phases: Ibur(conception), Yenika (suckling), Mochin (maturity), and the whole ladder of spiritual levels; only then will we be able to understand what The Zohar says. The authors of TheZohar attained all the 125 levels and it is from this height that they wrote The Book. They didn’t write it from the first, second, third, fiftieth, or seventieth level while they were advancing towards the 125^th level. First they attained all the 125 levels, and only then did they write everything from this height.

Even when they write about levels that are lower than the 125^th level, they look at them and write about them from the height of the 125^th level. It is like a schoolteacher who teaches a first grader what 1+1+ 2 is. There is a great difference between the way he understands this and the way he explains it to his student. First, they ascended to the 125^th level and then they wrote about the lower levels.

So even while reading articles that refer to the impure forces (Klipot) or the lowest level, we still receive the Light of Infinity through them. This is actually the height from which they wrote The Book of Zohar. So it doesn’t matter if we study a short passage on a lower level.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

A Stable Base For The Group

Question: How must the group work on its connection in order to adhere to the Rav and not allow external viruses to pull the entire society somewhere to the side?

Answer: The group must learn the method of correction on the spiritual path from the Rav, but realize it in itself. The connection between the friends must provide everyone with such a power, with such a foundation, that they will also be ready to hold themselves in their place without the Rav. They need the Rav only to be able to advance constantly in the right direction.

But on the level that has already been attained, the group must already be in such mutual connection that it creates a stable base so that they don’t need anyone; in the connection between them, they discover the Creator, and in this way they advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”

Einstein’s Universe

In the News (from Nature): “A manuscript that lay unnoticed by scientists for decades has revealed that Albert Einstein once dabbled with an alternative to what we now know as the Big Bang theory, proposing instead that the Universe expanded steadily and eternally. The recently uncovered work [It had been stored in plain sight at the Albert Einstein Archives in Jerusalem] written in 1931, is reminiscent of a theory championed by British astrophysicist Fred Hoyle nearly 20 years later. Einstein soon abandoned the idea, but the manuscript reveals his continued hesitance to accept that the Universe was created during a single explosive event. …

“The manuscript was probably ‘a rough draft commenced with excitement over a neat idea and soon abandoned as the author realized he was fooling himself,’ says cosmologist James Peebles of Princeton University in New Jersey. There seems to be no record of Einstein ever mentioning these calculations again.

“But the fact that Einstein experimented with the steady-state concept demonstrates his continued resistance to the idea of a Big Bang, which he at first found ‘abominable,’ even though other theoreticians had shown it to be a natural consequence of his general theory of relativity.”

My Comment: Although in my lectures I constantly mention the Big Bang as a starting point of the beginning of our world, all that we study is viewed only in relation to man, an observer, who, in this case, feels and perceives what is felt “in himself,” in his properties, and therefore it is necessary to speak not about the world around us and its changes, but about the change of our “perception within ourselves” and its changes, as new Reshimotare manifested in us. See the perception of reality in “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar“.
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Willing To Pay Any Price

Question: What happens when a person can annul himself?

Answer: He feels that he is already on a higher level in his connection with the upper, with the one to whom he has annulled himself. This is a question of equivalence of form. A higher level is a higher attribute.

Now I have a certain attribute of receiving or bestowal that depicts the world for me. When I annul myself with regard to the upper, I feel myself and the world, which means the inner and the external part of my attributes, in a more sublime manner. So I feel that I am in a different world.

Question: So it turns out that self-annulment is simply impossible and unbearable for a person.

Answer: We cannot annul ourselves and perform any spiritual action at all. But we must be convinced that we are helpless, and then we will be ready for a prayer. Our goal is to do whatever we can, to pay any price, to do whatever is in our power, and to see that nothing helps. Then we will cry out and stretch our hands to the Creator.

Question: If everything is predetermined, why can’t I save time and skip this intermediate phase?

Answer: But how can you turn to the Creator? A prayer is a real desire in answer to which you receive the perfect Light. Your request must also be perfect and then it will draw the perfect Light. This is actually what the whole period of preparation is concerned with. Reaching the perfect request can take a decade. Then you already have everything: You receive the Light that Reforms and you have a new attribute, the first spiritual state.

Then you advance to the second state, to the third…but all the following states are not as corporeal. It’s like the geological periods in the evolution of the Earth that lasted billions of years; there was the evolution of the animals that lasted a billion years and that of the plants that took half a billion years, but the evolution of the monkey, and of man that evolved from it, took only 100-200 thousand years, while the evolution of humanity has been only 50,000 years.

The development time reduces exponentially like on a logarithmic scale. It’s the same with the period of our preparation for the spiritual work, which is the longest and most exhausting. The other phases are much shorter. We have also developed in our technology, moving from DC to AC appliances, and now are working at high frequencies with lasers.

Question: How can a person hold on to this process which exhausts all his powers?

Answer: We can only count on the Creator’s help and on luck. Luck means holding on to the group, the teacher, the study, the daily schedule, as if you are in an army where everything is like clockwork: you get up, go to the lesson, from the lesson you go to work, and the whole day is according to this alarm clock. This is called God’s work.

After all, only at the end of correction will you be able to get rid of your desire to enjoy and until then you have to work. If you raise the importance of the goal to the right height, you will constantly feel elated. If you curse the Creator who gave you such hard work, it will not end well. You will suffer your whole life, torture yourself and your environment, and will come to nothing.

You should at least continue your participation in the group, even passively, as it says: “Anything but leave.” Eventually you will change, whether you want to or not; the influence of the environment will have its effect. We should understand that our state is perfectly arranged so that we will change, and there is nothing else we can do in this life.

We need to continually adhere to the group. If you are incorporated in it, you will feel that the group is an ideal state: that it is high, strong, and that you can always receive powers from it and adhere to it like a baby adheres to his mother.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14

Longing For The Lost Light

Question: It says that the Light is revealed according to a person’s need and desire (yearning) for the Light. But how can we long for it if we don’t remember anything about the shattering?

Answer: We can long for something that we never had and not necessarily for something that is lost. I can long for some special car that costs a lot of money. This means that I feel pain because I don’t have the Light and constantly feel a hunger, a deficiency, a desire for it.

It can also be interpreted as longings for a past filling since we have its Reshimo(reminiscence). We don’t awaken to anything if a new Reshimo isn’t wakened in us because we are in a closed system of all of reality. There was a desire to receive that was shattered and all its parts drew away from one another, but there is a chain ofReshimot in each part that should recreate its connection with the other parts, until they are all connected into one whole vessel.

If we feel a yearning, if we feel sorry about something or long for it, then it means that we already had it before. Whatever I can imagine stems from the shattering of the vessels. Otherwise it couldn’t be revealed, not in our feelings, not in our mind, and not even in our imagination.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/14

What Is Most Important Is Found At The End

Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 64: …with respect to the wisdom of the Torah, it is increasingly revealed in the latter generations. This is so for the reason we have mentioned, that the overall measure is completed specifically by the latter ones. This is why more complete Lights are extended to them, although their own essence is far worse.

This stems from the reverse order of between vessels and Lights. The purer and more refined the vessels are the less Light is in them, even though these vessels are expressed and corrected by the vessels that precede them. And conversely, the greater and deeper the “thickness” of the vessels, the more difficult it is to correct them. In contrast to this, the Lights in them are greater and are revealed by means of their correction.

These lights are specifically clothed in the finest and most refined vessels, being that the Lights are implemented in the order of NRNHY, while the order of the correction of the vessel is KHB ZON. In other words, the vessels are revealed from Keter to Malchut, from the highest to the lowest, whereas with the Lights it’s the opposite, from Nefesh toYechida, from the smallest to the greatest. They are linked between them in such a sequence.

This principle is not simple and confuses us and it’s very difficult for our understanding of the reciprocal relationships within the system in general, in every world and between the worlds. Sometimes we simply need to accept this as a general rule, as a law, until this gradually “settles” and is integrated with new internal vessels. And only after a person feels the essence does he begin to understand it. In the beginning the feeling comes within the corrected vessels to a particular degree; after that, understanding comes. So intellect always follows feeling.

People who are not linked to the inner essence of the Torah and are guided by their external intellect don’t understand this principle and therefore don’t see the uniqueness of our time and generation. They are familiar with the process of general deterioration; yet together with this, they remove themselves from the responsibility to correct the world. They suppose: “If we have deteriorated so much already, then all that is left for us is only to hope for the coming of the Messiah.”

Yet this is not right. Our generation is the most important for the general goal. And even though we are bent under the heavy burden of our ego, it is intended that we will work on it and will not be rid of it. Through work like this, we attract very great Lights for the highest souls that are beginning to correct humanity, and these souls are Adam, Abraham, and so forth. And we receive a thin and small Light according to our place in the general system, and we advance in this way until we reach the complete ten Sefirotof the entire creation.

Then in fact, we reach attainment and understand what difficult work we have carried out. Even if we were to make a mistake and be confused, even though we don’t succeed in solving and interpreting, even though we have erred and violated, this is unimportant. Otherwise it is impossible. In the end everything will reach the right analysis, the true account, and only then, on the highest level, can we correctly evaluate our state and discern its significance. And in the meantime, it’s up to us to proceed with “faith above reason” and believe in Baal HaSulam who wrote that the first generations were significant because of their refined desires, whereas we are significant because of our “thickness.”
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Working With The People Softens Even The “Heart Of Stone”

Question: Is the inner concern we feel regarding the public’s suffering the right indicator for building the spiritual Kli?

Answer: When we invest our forces in working with the public, we want to succeed for egoistic reasons. Therefore it’s easy for us to continue this work. We invest so much in these people that we already feel them as if they are relatives and we want their success. Therefore dissemination expands our vessels. If we are “cooked” only within the group, ultimately it will degenerate and remain in a static state. We will find it more and more difficult to take steps toward one another and to come closer to each other. This is really what happens.

But if we take care of people, we begin to be concerned for their advancement and success. It’s reasonable that we will advance together with our students, even though each one of them advances according to his level. And when you come from your students to friends, then you already relate to them differently, not like before.

It’s very difficult to reach an immediate and strong connection directly with people who are on the same level with you so as to be like one man with one heart. But only after you are concerned about the people who are on a lower level than you, do you soften and get the feeling of bestowal within your desire to receive, and as a result of this, you will pass to that inclination a desire to bestow toward the friends.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/25/14

What Should We Expect From Studying The Book Of Zohar?

Question: What is the right intention we should have when we openThe Book of Zohar?

Answer: The Book of Zohar was written as a result of the connection between souls and so it operates and influences us in the right way if we connect. Even if I read it by myself, it will affect me by pushing me to connect. But it is impossible to understand this book unless you are connected with other people.

It isn’t just an intellectual understanding, but a revelation.  I feel how I overcome my ego and begin to feel the others in my connection with others. I feel new powers and new attributes in the connection with others, and so I discover the upper world.

The Book of Zohar gives me the feeling of the others by revealing a force field of love and bestowal between us which is the spiritual world. This is the right outcome that we should expect from studying The Book of Zohar.
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From the World Zohar Week “World Zohar Convention,” Day One 2/5/14, Lesson 1

A Path Of A Woman

Question: What if I advance faster than my wife?

Answer: That’s the wrong attitude. Advancements of men and women are different in nature and style, and the comparison is inappropriate here. What a woman makes in the creation is not the same as a man.

Sometimes men and women can find a common language, but as a rule, they are unable to do so. Start reading any article or listening to a lesson and you will see that she thinks differently from you, as if addressing the subject matter from a different perspective. Eventually, women come to the same details of perception, but the path and the analysis of men and women are very different.

Men and women can discuss common questions, but when it comes to details, you need to take their current level into consideration.

Question: I see that our impressions complement each other from different sides. But at the same time, my wife has to spend a lot of time and effort with our child.

Answer: This is the women’s correction. Women care for their children and sometimes it looks like it is done at the expense of their self-correction. However, this is exactly how women advance, and a woman’s duty is to be a mother.

Some wonder, maybe I shouldn’t have children and should completely devote myself to studying, dissemination, and correction? No. Women should correct their souls by taking care of their children, by being together with them, and in the measure of time and desire remaining after this.

If a woman has the opportunity to marry and have children, she must do so. Women should take care of children even though it would seem that without children they could have done much more and advance much farther on their spiritual path. She could, but this is not a woman’s path of correction.

Question: Should women with children compare themselves with those women without children who have more time to study and disseminate?

Answer: No. If a woman with children participates in the study or any other activities to the extent she can, it produces correction many times greater than that of a woman who “refrains” from having children because she wants to be involved in Kabbalah. This kind of “abstinence” doesn’t help.

We just don’t realize that this world is built according to spirituality. If we bring sparks of spirituality into this life, we come closer to correction. One cannot rise to the next spiritual level if one has not laid a basis for it in this world. That’s why we have to marry, have children, and move on from there.

It would seem great if all of my students were disconnected from the cares of this world and were devoted to the spiritual. Imagine: everybody studies and disseminates. But instead they marry and women are almost immediately cut off from the process and men are obliged to support their families and resolve endless problems together with their spouses.

This is exactly what correction is. We cannot hide from this fact. Later, you will understand that this is the optimal way to do our job in the best possible way.

Conversely, those who avoid marriage reject the chance for correction. This applies to both men and women. So, if there is a possibility, you should start a family and carry the burden.

Anyway, a family is preferred over anything else because it is a basic part of the world’s correction. It is no coincidence that today the world is faced with the collapse of the family structure; this situation precedes the basic correction.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/14/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

What Is A “Question” in Spirituality?

A question in spirituality is a desire (Hisaron, need) that triggers the Upper Light. The Light descends and fills that desire. This is called a real question or prayer.

However, until such a real question is formed, one goes through an array of preliminary questions that are called “a prayer before a prayer.” In other words, before one really reaches the prayer, request, one undergoes numerous small, private, inaccurate questions until a correct question finally emerges.

In general, all questions boil down to one thing: “What is the meaning of life? Is it worth living? If yes, for what?” This is the only question that really exists. A man asks billions of different variations, and accordingly only gets a partial response. But at the end of correction, all will transform into one huge question that will be answered by one gigantic response—complete adhesion (Zivug a Shalem).

Question: What kinds of questions should we bring to you and which ones have to be clarified in the group?

Answer: It’s better if you come to me with a collective question. If you have a question that involves the entire group, please refer it to me.

Comment: So far, when I find answers to my questions in the group, I feel that they are correct.

Answer: Indeed “so far.” It is this way for every level, for me and for all. Answers that were right at this degree become incorrect when we reach a new level because the Keterof the lower Partzuf appeals to Malchut of the Upper.
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From a Lesson in Russian 2/10/14

Touching Bestowal

Question: What does a person feel when the attribute of bestowal is clothed in him instead of the attribute of reception? Does he go out to the streets filled with love for those who pass by, as if he enjoys the view of mountains and lakes while driving? Is it a permanent feeling, or does it pass immediately just like the pleasure I feel from the beautiful view?

Answer: The filling you get from bestowal passes and then comes back again as the states constantly change. Why do you think that this state, this feeling should remain? The pleasure you feel from the beauty of nature is much longer than the spiritual feeling. Every spiritual state ends the moment you feel it. This means that you have already touched it. You don’t need to feel it more than a moment in order to respond, and that’s it.

If I receive a chance to relate to others with greater concern than for myself, it doesn’t mean that I have to hug and kiss them. I can even shout at a person if he doesn’t work correctly; it makes no difference. The inner attitude belongs only to the connection of our souls. It is like your attitude towards your own child, who you love inside, while on the outside you do whatever it takes in order to educate him, until the internality and the externality become one.

Love always lifts a person above others since it prepares him for bestowal, and bestowal is only possible from the big to the small. It is a feeling of belonging, but not an egoistic feeling like with regard to your own child. It is impossible to describe. It is said: “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” There is nothing we can compare this feeling to in the corporeal world.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/24/14, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

Mission Possible

Question: How can I help the group to become a raspberry ball?

Answer: You need to be concerned about this as a person upon whom everything depends. And this is indeed the case. Our problem is that we think: “I am one among many thousands!” This is not true, each one is unique! These are not just words but the property of the integral system.

Therefore we cannot force a person to remain in the group and also cannot expel him from it. Each one chooses this through his actions, through his relationship to the group, for he becomes a foundation for human advancement.

Everyone must have a feeling of responsibility, a feeling of personal destiny; not only does the fate of the world depend on me, but that of the whole creation, of all advancement towards the Creator. And this is truly so. When we attain spirituality, we begin to understand that everyone except for me is in a completely corrected state, and I am the only one who wasn’t corrected, and everything acts in such a manner as to show me this in their reflection.

What we see in the world is our reflection: Someone kills someone, someone steals, abuses someone, this is all our ego that is demonstrating itself to us. How can I be relaxed and remove myself from this state?

To feel responsibility for the whole world, this is our obligation. Each one of us, this is the universe! Today the physicists already speak about multiple universes, and this is truly so: Many universes are included one within the other.

Therefore feeling our task is something very important for we are the main participants in creation. On the other hand, we must not panic. Our work is realized correctly only through the group, and nobody is exempt from this. It’s interesting that even those that we attract among the masses will feel this activity as their great mission.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

We Need Everyone

Question: I feel that everyone is already united and connected; whereas, I have not succeeded in attaining this in any way. How is it possible from that emptiness that I can ask for the friends and what exactly do I need to request?

Answer: Without your active participation we don’t attain anything. You need to ask in all kinds of words, to be included together with us in the collective system. And we need to show that without you we don’t attain that harmony that is imperative for us to discover the Creator. If the Creator chooses a particular amount of people to participate in the collective vessel within which He wants to be discovered, then we need to do this.

The spiritual system is built according to the principle of mutual acceptance and balance flowing to the end of correction. There are all kinds of components in it that complete the system. But in spite of it all, if the person is linked to us in some form, then we must show him that without active participation on his part we cannot attain anything, we need him.
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From the World Zohar Week “Integral Education Convention” Day Three 2/4/14, Workshop 5

How Can We Awaken The Creator?

Question: How can the lower hasten his own development and compel the upper to constantly operate on him?

Answer: On one hand, everything that happens to the lower comes from the upper, as it says “I am the first and I am the last.” If He is the first and He is the last, then what do I have to do? How can I bestow upon Him?

The only way to bestow upon the upper is through the group and not by oneself. I cannot do it by myself. The group is my upper and if I awaken the friends, I also awaken the Creator this way. This is our only work. If I want to hasten my advancement, my development, and improve my state, I can only do it through the group.

As long as I am by myself, there is no way I can bestow upon the Creator. When I am by myself I remain passive in my relationship with the Creator, just like the still, vegetative, and animate parts of nature. If I try to connect to the Creator by myself and study the wisdom of Kabbalah in order to do so, I still remain on the level of the still, vegetative, and animate.

If I want to awaken the Creator and force Him to take care of me, I have to do it through the group because the vessel of bestowal upon the Creator is in the connection between people. The same thing happens in the transition from one level to another. On the next level, I will have to attain a connection with everyone “squared” compared to the previous level. On additional levels the connection grows in the third degree, fourth degree, etc.

This means that each time I have to awaken the Creator by my own power, which is more tightly connected to the group. If I don’t increase it each time, I remain by myself, and then I am completely operated by the Creator, by different illuminations, which is the level of the still, vegetative, and animate, just as He operates all of nature and the people in this world.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot

Internal Disagreement With The Teacher Leads To External Distance

Question: Through service to his Rav (teacher), a student is linked to his Rav, to the Elyon (upper), and receives from him. What happens if there is a situation where the student does something against the desire of his Rav for whatever reason? How does this influence the link between them and the advancement of the student?

Answer: This indicates total detachment. If it is clear to a student that he is acting against the desire of his Rav, then how can he behave like this? The main spiritual law is the law of equivalence of form. Therefore, for the needs of Dvekut (adhesion), it is at least necessary not to oppose, but to be in some kind of agreement. Even if you are not ready to carry something out, you cannot act in opposition.

If the student acts in opposition to the desire of his Rav, then he has no chance of receiving something from him. We also need to understand that spiritual equivalence or lack of equivalence is much more intense than physical equivalence, and therefore it influences the physical world. In other words, it will lead to a great distance of the student from the Rav. He has no chance of remaining near him.

Certainly, for a student, there is the possibility of approach and correction, for the Rav sees him as a little child who is capable of doing something foolish. The Rav can be angry at the student as at a child, but in spite of all this, he thinks of him as his son, and so he forgives him. However, he cannot agree and allow the child to act against his spiritual development.

In the physical world, sometimes we have no choice but to look with forgiveness at the mischief of children. However, in spirituality, it is impossible to tolerate this. This is because behavior like this leads to a lack of equivalence of form that is the main law of reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/27/14, Topic of Lesson: “Teacher”