The Primary Concern

Question: Can I assume that the unity of our total awe, our commonfears, into one single fear creates the Creator among us?

Answer: Our fears—even better to say, anxiety—does not create the Creator, but the precondition for His revelation.

Fear is what we call concern for our material existence, but anxiety is a condition that is above our physical life, when I am in awe as to whether I will have an opportunity to exist in the property of bestowal. My concern is not even about that because it is also somewhat egoistic, but so that my awe serves as an opportunity for the Light to pass through me to others, as through the transfer channel.

The concern as to whether I can be a conduit for the Light to all the rest of the world is the correct awe. If a person imagines everything all the time in this way, then he is already close to a good state, connecting with others in one intention. Then, we have an ability to become a wide channel for passing the Light, a vessel in which we will feel the Creator.

Therefore, I am constantly in awe as to whether I will be able to pass through myself all that good, all that correction, which the Creator wants to produce in the whole of humanity. I want to be just a means for the movement of forces for correcting others.
[145618]
From the Convention in St. Petersburg “Day One” 9/19/14, Workshop 1

Ego That Is Squeezed Out Like Lemon Juice

A few years ago, if you were to hear from me about the evil of the ego, you would think that I was simply preaching morality to you. Now that a connection has been created between us, this feeling of dependence upon your ego has been handed over to you. Soon, you will begin to feel that it is really tiresome for you to be a slave of Pharaoh and to serve him.

After this, the prophecies and movements will begin as they did with Moses, “Come to Pharaoh,” and everything will continue to happen just like in the story. You will feel how Pharaoh puts pressure on the people of Israel, loading more and more work on them. The ego brings evil to you; life will go on without benefit. All of the fruits of your work will go to Pharaoh. Everything will be swallowed up by him, and as much as you try to correct something nothing will come of it for you.

In principle, you would want a little revitalization to make your soul happy, but nothing works. A little later, the crisis will appear everywhere, even in America and in Europe. However, it is possible that it won’t come to such a state. Instead, you will do all scrutiny in emotion and intellect, and not in coarse material. The problem is that people don’t hear the warnings.

It is possible to depart from the ego without waiting for the plagues of Egypt by developing the heart and mind. But in any case, this takes time, and it is not just a few waves that will pass over you because it is impossible to overcome the ego through one wave. One big wave would drown you so it is divided into several small waves.

Here, patience is required, but it means that you have to arm yourself with all the means at your disposal: connection with friends, with the teacher, along with the study and dissemination. Then, it becomes possible to hasten time very greatly.

Question: It is terrible to discover that someone always is cheating you and striking you, and you don’t even feel that this ego is living in you as a part of yourself. Why don’t they let us see it so that we can ask to be free of it?

Answer: You could ask, but this wouldn’t help you because this would be an egoistic request. You want to see the wretch who deceives you all of your life and destroy him? However, this will work only when you ask for this in order to reach the Creator. Then, you will be shown this wretch, otherwise, no.

Moses, the “point in the heart,” must come to Pharaoh and close accounts with him. Otherwise, you are acting for the sake of your own benefit because you want to be released from difficult work, from whomever is deceiving you.

A substantial reaction is required as in a chemical experiment that makes it possible to examine the composition that is filtered and separated it into several components. If you want to discover and see the truth in Egypt, it is possible only if you try to become a single whole with the group. Then, you will begin to feel what it means to go againstPharaoh. While still in Egypt, a reaction or mechanism will appear within you that will make it possible to differentiate and clarify where Pharaoh is and where is that which is above him.

This is because you never work directly regarding the Creator. In Egypt, this is not possible at all. So, you work in relation to the group, which is called the “people of Israel.” Begin to connect all of your friends in Egypt, which is, today, what all of this world is called, and then you will see where the power of Klipa is and where the Kedusha is, where Pharaoh is and where he isn’t.

Pharaoh is everything that disturbs unity. So, you will discover him more and more until the ten plagues of Egypt, and all of these plagues are relevant to the increasing connection. Ultimately, you will understand that you must leave Egypt.

However, this is possible only through such a connection where you squeeze all of the Pharaoh out of the group like lemon juice. All of the ego will ooze out, and only the group will remain. Then, this group must be filled with the power of bestowal, something that is impossible to do in Egypt, and so it departs from there.

All of the work is done only on the connection. It is impossible to work directly against Pharaoh. You can only summon blows upon him through a connection with the friends. The ten plagues correspond to the ten Sefirot. By rising higher and higher, from Sefira toSefira, to a greater and greater intensity of connection, you summon the Upper Light to act and influence Pharaoh and filter the ego.
[145255]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/8/14, “Sukkot”

Don’t Let Yourself Cool Down

We must reach an absolute connection between us, and we are now beginning to feel that this is being realized through our shared actions.

The first true connection between us will give us a feeling of the upper world. This connection will be called the ten Sefirot of the Kli, and the mutual shared feeling that fills us will be called Light.

The first Partzuf will be created within us, consisting of the Sefirot of Keter, Hochma,Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut with the Lights of NRNHY in which we begin to feel the higher, eternal, complete, and true state. We will then understand that the present state we now exist in is like a dream that is given to us so that we will be pushed, and in thrusting ourselves away from it, we will be awakened and begin to work in a practical manner.

To attain this, we must carry out a multitude of activities. But for the purpose of the appearance of a yearning for connection between us, our single group of ten or even a group composed of many groups of ten, is not enough.

If we want our spiritual needs to develop constantly so that we will be obligated to yearn for each other and the Creator, we must feed our desires all the time.

They do not appear within us by themselves; in order for them to appear, we must go out to the wider strata of the shattered Kli, meaning to all of humanity, to try and find additional desires among them. We must attract them to us, and in this manner we cultivate within us a yearning for coming together and elevation.

It is forbidden for us to forget about this, otherwise we will wither away. People who don’t find themselves in dissemination outside of their group withhold an incentive and drive towards elevation from themselves. They will begin to sit instead until they lose the general common drive, and the group will be disbanded.

So in the movement from me to we, we must remember wider dissemination. This could be the wisdom of Kabbalah or the wisdom of connection (Integral Education and Knowledge). It is not important what we call it; the main thing is that this is a wisdom about the right connection and unity, the restoration of the same collective Kli, the only desire that was shattered and destroyed from the start, even before the creation of our world.

We know that the authors of The Book of Zohar, when they gathered together to write it in a state of unity, were always discovering such hatred within themselves that they were ready to burn each other. And these were great people in the attainment of the head of the world of Atzilut. In this exact manner the shattering of the Kli of the collective soul was discovered in them.

But they had no other way to disseminate other than describing their attainments to help us with our correction, and in this was their correction. In this way, they departed from their ego and finished the work with absolute love. They then succeeded in describing great levels of elevation in The Book of Zohar.

If we turn to other Kabbalistic sources, they all speak about one one thing: issues about connection and the laws and general rules of unity between people in our world, and after that, unity between the souls until the discovery of the only corrected state.
[145306]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Two” 9/20/14, Lesson 4

Going Through The Ten Plagues Of Egypt

Question: The path of the ten plagues of Egypt is actually the path of suffering. Is it possible to bypass them and avoid them, or is it impossible to avoid them even if I focus on love and bestowal toward my group of ten, the people who are close to me, and the teacher?

Answer: It depends on the person who follows the spiritual path. If he identifies with the forces of Egypt and with Pharaoh, he surely suffers. However, if he identifies with working above reason and ascending above it, his ego suffers, but he doesn’t identify with his egoand so he doesn’t suffer.

The time of the spiritual development is called the plagues of Egypt, which means the plagues that the ego feels that help a person rise above it. However, if he is in his ego, they force him to rise.

It all depends on to whom you compare your position.

Question: Do the plagues of Egypt reflect a certain state that we go through?

Answer: We must process and practice together to the fullest, everything that is written in the Torah! You will see that we cannot miss even one step. There may be levels that I have gone through but did not realize it, then ten years later, as often happens in life, I begin to realize what I went throug and what these actions and circumstances were.

Question: This means that we have no chance of skipping any of the plagues?

Answer: What for? How can you detach from your ego if you don’t go through all the ten plagues? You will not have a whole vessel, a vessel of ten Sefirot.
[144947]
From Lesson 3 of the Convention In St. Petersburg “Day Two” 9/20/14

See The Friends As Higher

Question: Practically, how is it possible to try to ask for Light for the friends in a group of ten? Must I imagine them as miserable and try to transform them into being happy, or is it preferable to imagine them as uncorrected and ask for the Light of correction for them?

Answer: The right mutual relationships are shaped in a group when for me all of the friends in a group become exalted spiritual creatures, completely corrected people. I look at the friends through my ego so I see them negatively, with a multitude of deficiencies. If I were to correct myself, then I would see them as complete.

So I adhere to them and constantly try to work with them only for the purpose of bestowal. This is not because they need this, for in fact they are complete. Rather it is because if I try to help them with everything even though they don’t need any of this, because, after, all I am looking at them with my ego, then I will also advance towards them.

I must pray for them, ask for them, and follow them in everything, dissolving in what they say. First and foremost, this is a full nullification of myself in regard to the others. And it is completely unimportant who they are and what they are.

There were new students, small and limited with the great Kabbalist, Rabbi Yosi ben Kisma. But he saw their inner state and could humble himself in regard to them; he could feel them as being higher than himself. So he advanced forward. We must also do the same thing. We are not yet on the level of the great Rabbi Yosi, so it is much easier for us to do this.

But in no way should you allow any criticism! On the contrary, everything is done only to make it possible for me to make myself into the characteristic of bestowal. And then I will feel that the whole world was created for me.

We must concentrate only on this, so that with intellect and heart, with thoughts and desires to be with my group of ten, I try to create one thought and one desire in it, as one person with one heart. Try to reach a state like this and you will see what it carries within it.

You will begin to feel completely different characteristics and laws. This will be like a feeling from the start of a higher state, of the upper world. Switching the laws between us is correct; this is the spiritual world. Within it we begin to feel a completely different plane, a different dimension.

[144604]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

Predatory Things of the Century

Opinion (from Psyfactor): “‘Prophets of the Old Testament called those people who worshiped objects and things that they made with their own hands “the idolaters.” Their “gods” were things made of wood or stone.

‘The meaning of idol worshipping is in transferring all feelings, the force of love, and power of thought onto external objects. Contemporary people are idolaters. We perceive ourselves only through things we own.’ (Eric Fromm)

“The world of things continues to grow. A human being becomes smaller next to so many objects. Contemporary people define their existence by announcing: “I buy, therefore I am.” Being a “thing,” we confirm that we are alive only because we communicate with other objects.

“Costs of houses, furniture, cars, clothes, watches, computers, TV sets are the basis for the social status of an individual. When people lose a part of their belongings, it’s as if they lose a part of themselves. When they lose everything they have, they are totally lost.

“During economic crises, those who lose a significant part of their property commit suicide; they jump out of skyscrapers’ windows. Their wealth was in fact a substitute for their personality. Committing suicide as a result of financial bankruptcy in such a system of cultural values is very logical. Suicidal acts signify the bankruptcy of a personality, individuality.

“Previously, people also associated themselves with things, but never before did inanimate objects occupy such a high ranking in the system of social recognition as happened during the last decades, when consumption turned into the means of evaluating the status of an individual.

“The program of upbringing of those who subordinate their lives to work began; a new phase was launched – a stage of turning people into ‘consumers.’ The economy needed not only disciplined workers; good, disciplined customers who kept buying new goods as they showed up on the market were extremely essential.

“Advertising of consumer behavior was meant to get rid of the centuries-old traditions of buying only necessary things. Propaganda of a new ideology made people think that happiness was all about a non-stop buying process of new things.

“Consumers stay assured that they are the ones who make a choice of whether or not to buy certain products. However, advertising expenditures frequently reach more than 50% of the cost of goods sold. This fact speaks for itself: figures show how much energy and talent are being contributed to the process of persuading consumers to continue buying.”

Comment: At this time, we evaluate and realize previous developmental stages. as we move away from the current, consumption model of society. It is happening not because we became internally richer and thus don’t need any external signs to demonstrate our significance. Rather, the desire that requires a new type of fulfillment, a realization of the purpose of our existence constantly evolves in us.

Even though affectations on stages and screens push us back, still evolvement of our aspiration to reveal the essence of life is inevitable. It will eventually lead us to acknowledgment and recognition of the wisdom of Kabbalah.
[145129]

 References:

Predatory Things of the Century, a sci-fi story by Soviet writers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, written in 1964 and published in the Soviet Union in 1965, and then, after a long break, in 1980. The book has an epigraph : “There is only one problem – the one and only in the world – to return people to spirituality, to spiritual mutual care.”

Erich Fromm Zeligmann (23 March 1900 , Frankfurt on Main  – 18 March 1980, Locarno), German sociologist , philosopher, social psychologist, psychoanalyst, a representative of the Frankfurt School, one of the founders of neo-Freudianism and freydo-Marksizm.

Erich Fromm was born in a family of orthodox Jews. His mother, Rose Fromm, neeKrause, was the daughter of a rabbi, who emigrated from Russia. Father, Erich Fromm Naftali, was also the son and grandson of rabbis, and while engaged in trade, preserved and maintained the family in orthodox religious traditions.

The Torah As An Engine For Change

The Torah is a force, a means that corrects and transforms my evil inclination into a good inclination. Through its realization, if I attain a good result, then I reach Simchat Torah. Then I am happy that I had the Torah by which I corrected myself, achieved success and attained something good.

Question: if the Torah is a means for correcting evil, then the person must first identify the evil within him. And until then he doesn’t require this means. But if I have already begun searching inside, what evil will I discover?

Answer: The basic answer is that the evil is examined in relation to the Creator. Everything that is against the Creator is called evil. Whereas, the Creator is called “good and the does good” according to His actions.

My evil differentiates me from the Creator because I feel everything according to equivalence of form, and vice versa. I cannot perceive something with which I have nothing in common.

But the evil inclination is very important because the Creator is the one who created it. He created it in opposition to Himself, named it appropriately, and gave me some kind of mechanism, a key, through which I can discover this evil within me and transform it into good. And then I become good, precisely in the same form and at the same level as the Creator.

When I understand and perceive this, then the Torah acquires very great meaning in my eyes. This is because with its help I can transform from being a small bug into something very great and good, like the Creator, acquiring the same power, the same ability tobestow and love, the same knowledge, the same attainment, and the ability to become eternal and complete.

Torah for me is no longer just a Torah scroll in a chest. It is not just a book, but the power of correction, the power of inner changes.

This is a system that works and has an influence on me. It knows which desires to awaken in me, and I am changed.

This is a spice in the cauldron of the evil inclination and it could also be something outside of it. It cooks it, orders, arranges, plans, and transforms it into an opposite state. It is indeed an enormous means.

And now the whole question is, how should I use it? As far as it seems, here I will need to play some kind of role, do something myself.

And so my evil is precisely similar to the intensity of the Creator, but opposite and against Him. It is such a gigantic monster inside that it is even frightening to describe it. Therefore, the Torah must possess an even greater intensity to transform it from the evil inclination into the good inclination according to the degree of my participation.

During this process. I become good like the Creator in the same measure, in feeling and intellect, in intensity, and in all of my facets and details. By transforming my evil inclination into good, I reach compatibility with Him. Not too bad, is it?

And if this is the case, then a person who has learned to use the Torah has every reason to be happy on the Simchat Torah holiday. This is because he understands what is happening. Throughout the entire year he goes through everything by shaping and attracting the Light that Reforms to himself. This Light influences him, acts on him and corrects him time after time, flash of Light after flash of Light. And ultimately he reachesSimchat Torah, when he is entirely good and corrected.
[145345]
From the program “A New Life” 10/05/14

The Diagnostic And Curative Power Of The Torah

Question: Why does the holiday of Simchat Torah (rejoicing with theTorah) immediately follow Sukkot?

Answer: During the seven days of Sukkot, when I am in the Sukkah, which means surrounded by the surrounding Light, I being am corrected. This Light reaches me through Scach (branches that cover the Sukkah), which itself, is a whole spiritual mechanism.

I have guests every evening, such as  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David, each of whom symbolizes a special attribute in a person. In other words, it is about forces that correct my attributes by turning them from evil into goodness.

I perform internal work on the entire path to perfection and use the Torah as the force of correction, and thanks to that, I am able to identify the evil within me and identify it to such an extent that eventually there is none left.

After this diagnosis, the Torah turns the evil in me into goodness and then I resemble theCreator, the absolute goodness. I am filled with love and bestowal towards others and through them to Him, since it is actually the same thing. Thus I discover what is called “the whole world is filled with His honor.” He is in everything that seems to me as being external.

Question: The holiday of Simchat Torah symbolizes joy. What is a person actually joyful about in this holiday?

Answer: It is that he has used the Torah correctly and has corrected himself in equivalence to the Creator.

Question: Why is it so delightful to resemble the Creator?

Answer: Since we reach adhesion and equivalence of form with Him, now we can bestow unto Him just as He bestows unto me. This is how we are made and there isn’t a more sublime state for us.

Question: But still, what is concealed behind that?

Answer: I was created as a desire to receive pleasure, so in a state of complete equivalence of form to the Creator, I receive pleasure from Him. By turning all the evil into goodness, into similarity to the Creator, I begin to receive all the goodness and infinite abundance from Him. It is because I also want to bestow infinite abundance.

Thus the festive symbolism of the month of Tishre describes the path to the end of correction, which results in the eighth day, Shmini Atzeret, after which there is nothing else to correct. The word “Atzeret” stems from the Hebrew word “to stop – Atsar,” which symbolizes the end of correction.

We compare this perfect state to a pomegranate. All my 613 desires are the seeds of the pomegranate that have finally changed from evil to goodness.
[145402]
From the program “A New Life” 10/05/14