Question: How can we avoid a didactic and threatening tone in our explanations?

Answer: You need to show people that what you are talking about is not your imagination, but the phenomena and laws of nature.

For instance, I had an acquaintance in Russia who was an expert in materials strength. Once by chance, I attended his presentation. He was shown the specifications of a particular unit in a submarine, and he drew a conclusion: “It will not withstand it. Under the planned operating conditions, it will be disasterous.” And indeed, despite the emotions and distrust of his interlocutors, it happened the way he predicted.

I was impressed by his strictly scientific approach: These are the laws of nature, and nothing can be done here. The fact was that the unit could not withstand the pressure.

Thus, we have to show people that this is not our personal opinion, but these are the laws of nature. “Look and see for yourself. Shout as much as you wish, but it will not work.”

Everything depends on the correct explanation, in other words, on education. This is our entire work. Regardless of a person’s views, I just want to show everyone that my message doesn’t come from me; it is not my personal opinion and not my religion. This is the nature of things; check and make sure yourself.

Of course, I should prepare and adapt the material to make my presentation suitable for the audience. But overall, my task is to present the facts.

Imagine, a person is jumping from the 100th floor because at the level of the 99th floor, a green fabric is stretched, which appears to him to be a lawn. So, I need to push away this illusory “grass” ahead of time and show him the real distance to the ground.
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/30/2011, “The Nation”

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In the news (From Yahoo News): “The head of the European Central Bank on Tuesday defended his institution’s decision to help stabilize the bonds of Spain and Italy, but indicated that the ECB doesn’t see itself as the eurozone’s lead firefighter for long.

“‘It is the worst crisis since World War II, and it could have been the worst crisis since World War I if leaders hadn’t taken the important decisions,’ [said] ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet.

“Trichet didn’t directly confirm that the ECB has been buying up the bonds of Italy and Spain, saying only that his banks ‘is in the secondary market’ for eurozone bonds…

“The ECB head also indicated that his bank still sees the main responsibility for fighting the debt crisis with eurozone governments and not the central bank.

“‘I won’t say’ how long the ECB will buy bonds on the secondary market, Trichet said. ‘What we expect is that the governments do what we consider to be their job.’

“He said eurozone countries needed to implement recently taken decisions to allow their bailout fund to buy government bonds on the open market ‘as rapidly as possible.'”

My Comment: Of course, everyone understands that this is done out of despair. Nobody has a rescue plan. People still don’t feel that it’s vital to hear that the solution is in the social dimension, in bringing the entire society to mutual guarantee, even in the name of saving the nation. But the program of nature has plenty of pressuring methods in store to compel humanity to seek unity, the similarity to global nature.
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Achziv Convention, Lesson 2
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Achziv Convention, Lesson 3
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Question: 70 years ago Baal HaSulam warned people that the Holocaust was coming, but no one listened. Today we also warn of dire developments and the possibility of a world war. Why don’t we draw a clear parallel to the words of Baal HaSulam as proof that we are right?

Answer: The very quality of the human ego is such that it cannot see this scenario. People are simply unable to discern it.

And yet the present situation is different from that of the last century. 70 years ago Baal HaSulam studied with 5-6 of his regular students, but today there are many thousands that study his materials, which at the time he couldn’t take outside of the group. People the world over are beginning to accept this message and identify with it. Naturally, each to his own measure, but still.

There’s nothing you can do; these are the laws of evolution. If you could see the entire magnitude of Malchut that needs correction, you wouldn’t have these questions.

Imagine that you’re sailing from Europe to America without a map, and even when you’re only a few miles from land, you still can’t see it; you think that you are lost in the very heart of the ocean. Your field of vision is limited to the horizon, and you see only water until the very last moment when the edge of the continent appears over it.

The first to see it will be the person that sits at the highest point, provided there is someone on your ship who has climbed higher and sees further. “Land!” he’ll shout. But you won’t see it yet. Will you believe him?
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From the 5th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/29/2011, “The Nation”

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Turning Above with an appeal (raising MAN) is an action we do not feel. It is a consequence of many actions, deeds, hours of study, work on dissemination, uniting with the group, and internal analysis. All of this accumulates more and more until we reach a state where this cup overflows.

That is the reason why a person does not know when it will happen. He is putting in the effort, training, trying to prepare himself, and finally, he comes to execute this action as a result of all the great, provisional preparation. Then, he can say something about it.

However, in reality, this action is accumulated outside of himself, and it actually is not him preparing and finally executing the action. That is why it is said: “Each penny is accumulated into a big account.” Then, this common, large account activates in the upper one, forcing it to take action. All of the actions obey the law of equivalence of form, and that is why it happens when the appeal of the lower one begins to correspond to what the upper one is ready to do to him.

MAN is a prayer, an appeal, a desire, with which I turn to Above, and this is the only thing that I am capable of doing. When I call to Above with an appeal, I do not know whether it is correct or not. I do not know whether I have or have not done it because a prayer is called “the work in the heart,” and that is why we do not feel how we raise the prayer, the sparks left behind after the breaking (Reshimot).

We do not know what is really going on in the depths of our heart, and we only feel the consequence when we receive the answer to our prayer. The answer is felt in the heart. It expands and begins to perceive new phenomena from a different dimension, which is something that a person has never felt, understood, or known before.

The heart widens as a person comes out of himself and incorporates more and more into his circle. First, his circle includes a part of the world and then, the entire world, all of the upper worlds, and the spiritual steps.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/24/2011, Shamati #81

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about these passages from the great Kabbalists. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

We Have Neither Attainment Nor Perception of any Matter

We have no perception whatsoever in the essence of the person in himself, without the matter. This is because our five senses and our imaginations offer us only manifestations of the actions of the essence, but not of the essence itself.

For example, the sense of sight offers us only shadows of the visible essence as they are formed opposite the light.

Similarly, the sense of hearing is but a force of striking of some essence on the air. And the air that is rejected by it strikes the drum in our ear, and we hear that there is some essence in our proximity.

The sense of smell is but air that emerges from the essence and strikes our nerves of scent, and we smell. Also, the sense of taste is a result of the contact of some essence with our nerves of taste.

Thus, all that these four senses offer us are manifestations of the operations that stem from some essence, and nothing of the essence itself.

Even the sense of touch, the strongest of the senses, separating hot from cold, and solid from soft, all these are but manifestations of operations within the essence; they are but incidents of the essence. This is so because the hot can be chilled; the cold can be heated; the solid can be turned to liquid through chemical operations, and the liquid into air, meaning only gas, where any discernment in our five senses has been expired. Yet, the essence still exists in it, since you can turn the air into liquid once more, and the liquid into solid.

Evidently, the five senses do not reveal to us any essence at all, but only incidents and manifestations of operations from the essence. It is known that what we cannot sense, we cannot imagine; and what we cannot imagine, will never appear in our thoughts, and we have no way to perceive it.
– Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” Item 12
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