Question: What is the difference between personal joy and the joy of many?

Answer: The joy of many is positive, beneficial, and easily achieved. We are talking about spiritual joy, of course, which exists above time, increases in pleasure, and does not disappear.

The joy of many occurs when I fill everyone else, and each of them fills the others and me. In this manner we intensify our fulfillment and joy within each person. I delight in the joy of others, they delight in my joy, and, together, we multiply our inspiration and reach a Light that is 620 times more powerful than the Light at the beginning of creation. We can receive all this and enjoy it in our world.

Due to an event like the Convention, in the connection between us we reveal such a Light, such a spiritual power, and joy that we will reach the level of Infinity! And one must reveal this during his lifetime.
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From Kabbalah for Beginners, "Happiness" 10/28/10

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Mankind as a whole and each person individually can be divided into the following three types of desires:

1. Those who are indifferent to spirituality and remain at the animate level of existence. They relate to others only in order the find the most comfortable and pleasant way of interaction. These people don’t step beyond the “I versus environment” calculation.

2. The second type are the religious and those who believe in being rewarded for “good” deeds according to their standards. Faith and philosophy don’t matter to them: Some fear the police and others fear the Creator. They both seek reward from their environment, but the religious expect to be rewarded in the future world as well. They are receivers of payment one way or the other, and each one defines for himself the optimal reward expected at a given moment.

These people do not have the slightest intention to correct themselves, and therefore they have no relationship with the Creator. They simply practice psychological self-help, expecting to receive in the future world in exchange for certain actions they perform in this world.

They are willing to pay and suffer many hardships in this world in order to collect a handsome reward which they were told awaits the righteous when they die. They believe the elation and paradise that they will feel in the future is even worth dying for.

3. The Kabbalists are the ones who understand that everything mentioned above is a lie and it doesn’t work, that the principle of “do something and be rewarded” doesn’t work in a relationship with the Creator. It doesn’t hold up when it is tested in the reality of life or human history.

At this stage, a person arrives at a more exalted goal: to know the purpose of life. He doesn’t care that much about reward or punishment (“sweet” or “bitter”); he wishes to dig deeper and reach the truth (“truth” or “false”). He may suffer and receive nothing for it, but the truth is the reward he seeks. Then a person does not measure himself according to how satisfied he feels or how bitter or sweet something seems, but by what is true or false.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/10, “The Creator and Israel Went Into Exile”

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In his article "Exile and Redemption," Baal HaSulam writes that Israel (a person who searches for the Creator) will find no rest among the “other nations” (desires of this world) until the following takes place within him: “And from there you shall crave the Creator, and you shall find Him, for you shall look for Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

Until you have reached such a request, you have no chance of escaping Egypt for it is only with a ripe desire that you will gain your freedom. Your own desires to remain in Egypt are the guards that are keeping you there.

This is why the 10 Egyptian plagues are necessary. In order to be born, one must come to feel a great yearning for the next degree, that is, to desire what’s on the outside while still remaining on the inside.

It’s as though there are two totally opposite desires inside of you. They cannot be reconciled, but you come to a point where they almost connect, and that is when the breakthrough happens. The force of the Upper One expels you and hurls you onto the next degree in accordance with the principle, “I labored and I found” (Igati ve Matsati).

Indeed, you have achieved the point of near-contact between your desire in your current state and your subsequent state. In nature it is impossible for the desire to receive to make contact with the desire to bestow. Therefore, when this transition takes place inside you, the Creator completes the work (the serpent’s bite), and you are born on the next degree!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, “Exile and Redemption”

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Since the times of ancient Babylon, there are people who belong to “Isra-El,” that is, have a desire for the Creator. Their number is increasing over the course of history because their souls are becoming mutually incorporated in one another. This is why there are so many people now who search for spiritual redemption, meaning desire to abandon the property of egoistic reception and attain bestowal.

There is an inner struggle inside each one of us between the desire of “Isra-El” which strives to reach love and bestowal and all our other desires which do not yet wish to hear of bestowal and unity. This way, man constantly balances between the two sides, the two powers.

When the desire is truly to bestow, when there is a spiritual spark that remains from the breaking, the person will not be able to remain submerged in his egoism, in his desires of the “nations of the world.” Spiritual sparks will necessarily flow out of there.

At first, they fell and mixed with this enormous egoistic desire, as if they were thrown into a “broth” and had “soaked it up,” and then they were taken out together with the desire (Aviut or coarseness) they had “soaked up.” In other words, the spark (GE) returns to its place, but now it is surrounded with the desires which have attached themselves to it. They are called AHP de Aliyah (of elevation).

However, as long as Israel, the desire for the Creator, is submerged into the desires of the “nations of the world,” it will not find peace and will keep being pushed out by them as a foreign body in order to ascend and perform the correction. To be in the power of these desires is referred to as exile, while the ascent and correction is referred to as redemption.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/10, "Exile and Redemption"

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The Creator desires for us to receive pleasure from Him. This is the plan of creation. Since He is Good and Does Good, the only thing He lacks is someone to do good upon. That is why He created us out of a material called "the will to enjoy."

But what should we enjoy? Precisely Him. When our desire feels that the Creator is close, that He fulfills it and is united with it, it experiences pleasure. On the other hand, when it grows distant from the Creator, it feels worse in relation to Him to the point that is suffers and feels empty. Yet we always feel only the Creator!

Our material is sensitive to the Creator’s sensation and presence. If it feels the Creator more, it perceives Him as pleasure, and if it feels Him less, it perceives Him as suffering. This happens until the will to enjoy the Creator grows more and more distant from Him, finally reaching a state of completely losing all contact with Him. Then the will to receive pleasure finds itself in this world, where there is no connection with the pleasure or its source.

This separation is necessary so we would desire to unite with Him and enjoy Him of our own accord, and to understand that there is nothing sweeter and better than being unified with Him. This mutual action is called "Zivug" (spiritual unity), when we become included into each other to such an extent that it is impossible to distinguish and separate us from each other. That is the unity we have to reach. And if we acquire the right necessity for this, then we will begin to feel Him, unite with Him, and feel His embrace.
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From the lecture on 11/2/10

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Question: What should we do in order to reveal the Shechina between us at the Convention?

Answer: Just one thing: unity. There isn’t one action that depends on us besides coming closer to each other. This will enable inspiration to flare up among us, which will help us to unite .

We unite internally. It’s not necessary to hug each other, although sometimes the external actions do help. First of all, I have to understand that I will enter the spiritual world and acquire life on a higher level only if I ascend to a higher, more powerful desire to perceive everyone as parts of me.

However, that’s when a purely psychological problem arises: I reject them. That means I have to change my perception and attitude, and break through the inner fence between me and others.

To do this, I have to come closer to my friends so they influence me. Then they will suffuse me with their idea and goal, with the unity in which each of us will reveal the Upper Reality.

That’s why we are organizing the Convention and uniting with everything we have. This is practical Kabbalah.

In the past people used to think that Kabbalah predicts the future and deals with something supernatural. But there is nothing supernatural about it besides the transformation of our egoistic nature to an altruistic one.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/5/10, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, "The Acting Mind": "Every person is obliged to attain the root of his soul. This means that the aspired-for purpose of the created being is adhesion with His qualities. His qualities are the Holy Sefirot, and this is the acting mind that guides His world and by which it allots them His benevolence and abundance.

But we must understand why this is called, “Dvekut with the Creator,” as it seems to be mere study…In every act in the world, the mind of its operator remains in that act. In a table, one can attain the carpenter’s dexterity and deftness in his craft….

This is so because in fact, there is no distance and cessation between spirituals, even when they are in distinct bodies. But the mind in them cannot be distinguished, since what knife can cut the spiritual and leave it separated? Rather, the main difference between spirituals is in their qualities – praiseworthy or blameworthy – and the composition, since a mind that calculates astrology will not cling to one that contemplates natural sciences.

And there is great diversity even within the same teaching, for if one exceeds another in even one element, it separates the spirituals from one another. But when two sages contemplate the same teaching and bear the same measure of sagacity, they are in fact united, for what separates them?

Hence, when one contemplates another’s action and attains the mind of the sage who performed it, they have the same mind and power. Thus, now they are completely united….

Hence, the rule is that in the Speaking, the mind is the best-adjusted force between the Creator and His creatures. It is considered the medium, meaning He conferred a spark of that force, and through that spark, everything returns to Him.

And it is written, “In wisdom hast Thou made them all,” meaning that He created the whole world with His wisdom. Hence, one who is rewarded with attaining the manners by which He had created the world and its conducts is adhered to the Mind that performed them. Thus, he adheres to the Creator.

This is the meaning of the Torah being all the Names of the Creator, which belong to the creatures. And by their merit, the creature attains the Mind that affects everything, since the Creator was looking in the Torah when He created the world, and one achieves illumination through Creation and forever cleaves to that Mind; thus, he is adhered to the Creator.

Now we understand why the Creator has shown us His tools of craftsmanship. For do we need to create worlds? But from the above-mentioned, we gather that the Creator has shown us His conducts so we may know how to adhere to Him, which is “cleaving unto His qualities.”
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