A Payment That Cannot Even Be Counted!

Question: Why do some groups succeed in providing their friends with strong support and protection from external influences, while some groups find it very hard to do so? What should we focus on in order to strengthen the group?

Answer: The main thing that kills us is the routine. A person likes to calculate what he has earned at the end of every day when he comes back from work. We must understand what our profit adds up to, whether I can add things up and be glad although I don’t see any payment in my vessels of receiving.

However, I can value and praise the profit I have made, the work that was done, and the efforts that were made during the day. I didn’t get any corporeal profit as a result, but I helped to correct the world, and, through the world, I helped the Creator. This is the profit I should praise constantly, and this is where the environment should support me.

If a person doesn’t understand that he needs a strong group for that and doesn’t demand such support from it, he cannot advance since he has no fuel. We should check this and accordingly see if we feel enough energy and motivation.

We should establish the environment by our collective powers and not wait for someone else to do it for us. We are lucky to have the chance to study, to have books, the right intention, and a teacher. We should use all that as quickly as possible!
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/13, Writings of Rabash

What Kind Of Friends Do I Need?

Question: What is the most important criterion I can use to check what kind of friends I should adhere to?

Answer: You should get closer to those who constantly attend the lessons, engage in dissemination, and take part in the duties. These people can be a role model for me even by their external behavior and by their corporeal earthly actions. Therefore, I want to adhere to them.

It makes no difference what a person’s character is and exactly what kind of work he does in the group. What’s important is that he comes everyday and takes part in everything. It is best to adhere to such people who don’t stand out in the group because of their special attributes, but are loyal to it and give it all their powers.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/13, Writings of Rabash

With The Friends Under The “Sukkah Of Peace”

Question: What is so special about the love of friends that allows me to cover all sins?

Answer: Love of friends covers all sins. After all, if we work on connecting our sparks in the group, then all the other desires surrender to the Light of love despite the fact that they are so opposite from one another to such an extent that they actually hate one another. This Light operates on us from above, from the upper level, when it covers us with one blanket, one umbrella, a Sukkah of peace, and obligates all of us to unite, although internally we remain very different.

Question: Do I choose the friend once or anew every day?

Answer: I don’t choose according to corporeal criteria. In the meantime we don’t know why we have been brought into one group from above, he and I. It depends on the root of the soul, on the sentence of the souls, which we will learn about later. But because we are in a group we have to fulfill our freewill and to connect into one system, one group.

Choosing a friend means being loyal to him despite the repulsion and the doubts. I shouldn’t feel any difference between him and me. Every moment the thought and the desire change in me, I have to choose him in the exact same manner, I examine myself and him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/22/13, Writings of Rabash

If I Get Sick I Will Turn To The Friends

Rabash, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend- 2″: It was written in the book, Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah, p 143), that one is not impressed by the society or takes their appreciation of something, unless he regards the society as greater than himself. This is the reason why each one must feel that he is the smallest of them all, since one who is great cannot receive from one who is smaller than himself, much less be impressed by his words. Rather, it is only the smaller one who is impressed through appreciating the greater one.

This is one of the recommendations as to how a person has to organize his thoughts, his desires, and his attitudes in order to reach the goal. The ultimate goal of course is in the initial thought, but in order to reach that a person has to build from the endpoint to the to the very beginning.

The advice can be general and individual. The general advice is from the foundation for the individual’s advice, and it’s our obligation to follow the spirit of the general advice. The individual advice refers to specific thoughts that suddenly come to a person, but the foundation has to be solid and common to everyone.

This is why it is necessary to feel the importance of the group and it has to be as strong and great as possible, which means great in quantity and quality. It’s because a person is a desire to receive. Everything begins from the ego that must be corrected. So we have to think about what works most effectively on my ego, on my desire to receive, which members of the society.

Some can influence me, and someone cannot. I need to be like an objective doctor, an outsider who is taking care of this patient, of my desire to receive, which I have to cure. So I need to check which society I need for that and which people impress me, and which actions, and what bestowal I should ask from the friends. When I am sick I am allowed to ask the friends for help, since it says: “They shall help one another.”

When we gather, we have to praise the society and speak of its greatness and then speak about the necessary measures by which we reach the love of friends, and from the love of the created beings we reach the love of the Creator. So I can advise them and ask them to perform such actions that I believe will affect my desire to receive most efficiently.

We must hope, wait, expect, and check, whether our feeling towards the love of friends and towards getting closer to one another is constantly growing, and whether I feel help from above by that, meaning the bestowal of the Light that Reforms. We must constantly check ourselves: which changes occur from one day to the next, from one week to the next, and  whether we feel the changes as we get closer to the friends, the growing importance, necessity, and the strengthening of our connections. I check my ascents and descents according to these criteria and not according to my mood. Thus we advance.
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From the Preparation of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/13

I Live In A World That Lives In Me

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”, Item 25: …about the reason why the Torah was not given to our fathers, because the Mitzva, “Love thy friend as thyself,” the axis of the whole Torah and around which all the Mitzvot revolve, so as to clarify and interpret it, cannot be observed by an individual, but only through the consent of an entire nation.

And this is why it took until they came out of Egypt, when they became worthy of observing it. And then they were first asked if each and every one of the nation agreed to take that Mitzva upon himself. And once they agreed to it, they were given the Torah.

I cannot reach anything in a group of ten if all the other friends don’t support me and don’t cooperate with me. In fact, we must be “as one man in one heart.” My personal efforts will be ineffective if the others don’t participate in the efforts.

This may seem like a very big obstacle, but in fact, it isn’t an obstacle. If I cannot incorporate in a framework called a “corrected group of ten,” it means that I have not reached my personal correction yet and have not become the one who bestows, adhered to the Creator, at least to a certain extent.

The perception of the spiritual reality already operates here. I mustn’t see anything on the outside as an external factor. The pattern of the ten is inside me as a replica of my inner world that is meant only so that I can work with my attributes that seem to be on the outside, in the friends. This helps me approach the correction in a more practical manner.

The Creator is not revealed to an individual created being, but only in a group of ten. This matches the structure of the nation and of the entire world. Therefore, I must work on the whole wide dimension of reality.

It is because all this is actually me. I see my inner attributes on the outside, like radiography, in the still, vegetative, and animate nature and in human beings. It is as if everything is spread from me outward.

So, I must see how all the others are advancing to correction and to what extent I can help advance every part that is external to me. In one place, I introduce integral education, and in another place, I present introductory material for integral education. However, one way or the other, it stems only from me, from the same source, and is aimed only in one direction, toward actual integral education and onward to more internal circles, which means the desires that are closer to my point in the heart. Here, I can engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah and work in a group of ten, which means in an environment that is closer to the spiritual spark in my point in the heart.

This is how I should see the general picture. Through this perception, I understand that if I restrict my perception and don’t worry about the entire world, it will lead to nothing.

However, a person advances along this path by the Light that Reforms that gradually helps him perceive things correctly. So, we must do only what we are obliged to do, and eventually we will change. The Light will come and illuminate, and then I will see and understand that my approach and my perception should be general. The Light will let me feel and understand what the attribute of bestowal is, and I will accept it and continue.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

Buying The World Of Infinity At The Price Of A Match Box

Question: What should we do so that the Light that Reforms will convince us that only through connection can we reach the attribute of bestowal?

Answer: This recognition may come by the path of suffering, “in its time,” when a person feels a big disappointment that he has devoted much energy and has reached nothing. This happens after many years.

It also can be by the ordinary initial connection with the group when a person begins to understand and feel that only the Light that Reforms can summon the change in him. It isn’t enough just to hear that; a person needs to already feel it in his heart, his heart has to hear.

When the heart perceives this information, we accept it as a fact that it is impossible to manage without the help of the Light. We don’t have to look up where it says so since this wisdom already will live in us, in our feelings and not in our mind. We need the mind only to support and help clarify the feeling.

In order for the heart to listen, we have to subdue ourselves before the environment. Our heart is deaf and cannot hear! We cannot do anything with it. We hear something through our ears, but it doesn’t penetrate the heart. It hits the “the stony heart” and bounces, like when hitting a wall, without penetrating it. Therefore, we must work on submitting ourselves—as it is written, “Buy yourself a friend and make yourself a Teacher”—submitting ourselves forcefully.

We do not control our desires, but we live in the world of actions, and so our physical actions also help, even if they are against the desires of our heart. Try to bring the friend a small gift everyday—anything. Buy a matchbox and give him a match everyday as a present. You will see how hard it is since you will have to constantly think about that. It doesn’t matter what the gift is worth, as it is written: “until many pennies accumulate into a great sum.”

Try it and see! You will have to think about the friend, to remember it, to justify your actions, and to value their benefit. Do you have the money to buy a matchbox? So you have nothing to worry about. You have the means to enter spirituality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/13, Writings of Rabash

The Acceleration Of Time

Question: Today most people think that in the subjective reality, time is beginning to advance much faster. In the past it seemed to them that time was stretched and smeared, so now the weeks go by so fast that people don’t pay attention to them. Why is this happening like this?

Answer: The life expectancy of the person who lived two or three hundred years ago was not more than 36 – 40 years on average. For them time flowed slowly, evenly, even though for them a lifetime was two times less than it is for us. Whereas for us there isn’t enough time for anything, time “runs” and suddenly we are old and then we die.

We feel time differently because the value of time is different. The number of activities that we can include in every moment in time has changed. Therefore time is also very saturated, dense.

This is not connected to fears, tension, or some kind of expectation that a person has; this is a much more complex problem. The more we develop, more and more we become detached from the animal world.

An animal can live calmly. It has no concept of time: If it needs to lie down, it lies down, if it needs to hunt, it hunts, and so forth. That is, for the animal everything is determined, everything is according to the seasons of the year, everything has been considered. Nature shows it exactly what to do, and it has no problem with time. The animal is never late.

But the more that we have become humans in our development, the more we have problems with time. This is essentially because we want to renounce the concept of the “sensation of time.”
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From KabTV’s “Through Time” 3/17/13

Very Helpful Imaginary Friends

Question: Yesterday, you spoke about Abraham who discovered thewisdom of Kabbalah by introspection. What is that?

Answer: All of reality is in a person. What is more, reality doesn’t actually exist, there is a picture of it that I develop inside me. It is felt in the vessels, in my desires, by a certain sensor, by inner frames of a photographic film that reflect the reactions to the upper Light that depict my lack of equivalence of form with it.

A “flashlight” of the simple white Light is directed at me, but I am made of 613 different desires, different attributes that form a colorful, three dimensional picture of the world filled with sounds, scents and things I can touch on the background of the white Light. In other words, I actually “draw” or design the world in which I live.

However, according to my perception of reality, everything depends on my attributes and not on anyone else. It turns out that, if I change, the world will change. This is what we can do by introspection when I understand that I can change the world by the changes I make in me.

So, how can I change? I cannot do that by myself. I only have an unpleasant feeling in the current reality, and I cannot pull myself up by the hair out of the swamp. After all, even the thoughts about a change are part of this swamp.

This is exactly where the force of the shattering helps me. In my fictitious reality, there are people around me who tell me, “You know, we also think about that.” I see that the other parts of the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature are managed by one general mechanism, but my imagination draws people who have the exact same vector as I do, and this enables me to practice and to exercise. Now, I can see myself from the side. I can work with them just as I work with myself, like with an external reflection of myself.

When I work with them, I discover that this game is very creative. The relationship with the images of the friends helps me advance by acquiring a new perception, a new feeling. They don’t develop my old attributes and don’t add to the previous mind and previous feelings, but rather develop new qualitative attributes in me, attributes that I didn’t have before.

For example, a multi-dimensional perception or rising above the concept of time: Before, I could see the past, present, and the future, and now I stop feeling time. The external movements disappear and I perceive everything internally and connect it with the inner movements. I change, and as a result I feel changes on the background of the white Light.

If I work with the images of the friends that I see this way, I understand that it is true that they are depicted by my imagination, but the right attitude toward them allows me to acquire a special means for inner changes. Through the mutual efforts with these images, I attribute a certain independence to them—to the extent that I want to be independent. Eventually, when I play with them this way, I acquire the perception that takes me out of the current picture that is drawn on the screen of my consciousness to a new reality.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/29/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam