Preparation to the Lesson
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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “Article 4,” Lesson 2
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Kdoshim,” Item 97, Lesson 7
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Volume 3, Part 8, Item 43, Lesson 27
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Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)
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Kabbalah for the Nation Introductory Series,” ” The Laws of Nature Are Revealed”
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We shouldn’t be afraid of suspending someone or even of taking him totally out of our circle of the global group if these friends refuse to follow our principles and who hold on to their opinions which are different from the ones determined by Kabbalists.
Kabbalists are people who are already on the spiritual levels and who pull us towards them from there. It is they that we want to follow and not any living person in this world who is after some goals of his own and whose ego is now burning inside him pushing him towards these goals.
It is very important to remember that. In fact it is typical of everyone and the only difference is the matter of degree, but there are many people in which the unrestrained ego is burning so strongly that it pushes them to determine a new direction as they see fit. If they cannot restrain themselves, the group must do it.
We can meet such people among those who deal with dissemination actively. They are burning with passion to do everything as they see fit and don’t let others participate in the work by keeping others away and protecting their “territory.”
We should perceive such trends as destructive for our work. On the one hand, a person should be free to work and to advance successfully. But on the other hand, if he aspires to do this work alone, without drawing others to it, without giving them equal opportunities next to him in the same territory, then it will gradually begin to have a destructive effect both on him and on others.
We should constantly check whether there is equality among us and openness in our relations with one another so that there won’t be cases of someone trying to keep a certain territory for himself, a certain niche, a direction in which he will be untouchable. Everything should be open to everyone and a person should be especially happy when he dissolves among others everywhere, in every job, in every goal and in every success.
If this doesn’t happen, such people will eventually cause great harm to the group, although for a while it may seem that they are doing a good job. We should be very careful of them.
If a person cannot work by really subjugating himself and only feigns modesty, as in a theater, he will eventually cause terrible damage. So we should be very careful of such people.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Conversation About the Group”
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In all the groups there are sometimes problems, and there are people who do not agree with what is happening and believe that they have to advance differently. There are those who act that way simply because it is their nature to be altruists or philosophers. It has nothing to do with the path of correction and they have no point in the heart. They arrive and they begin to decide how things should be run and think that everything should be done in an opposite manner because naturally it is against their egoistic nature.
There are different cases in which a person sometimes acts this way because he likes to be dominant and cannot restrain himself until he acquires some knowledge and understands the method. It takes years, sometimes 15-20 years, and until then a person is unable to give the “half a Shekel” that he should, his half of the work, so that the Creator will complete the other half, but thinks that he can turn his life around by himself.
It is foolish pride, but we usually don’t perceive it with our corporeal senses since a person in this world does everything according to his corporeal feelings and mind. But if he begins to approach the spiritual work with these feelings and mind, then it is a totally naïve and childish approach. He tries to work with systems that are opposite from his from which he is totally detached and doesn’t even know in what way he is opposite from them.
If at the same time he also begins to feel proud, then sadly he causes harm not only to himself but also to others. Eventually it comes back to him like a boomerang and hits him whether in this life, if he is still alive, or in the next life.
A person should take into account that all the harm he causes the environment will be many times greater and will come back to him! So the group has to guard itself from such people the moment such deviations appear. Usually it happens if the group has no strong leadership or if for different reasons it doesn’t want to share information with other groups. Then other groups don’t know what is happening in that certain group and cannot help it and support it.
Such people have a strong ego and being foolish they assume that they know and understand what should be done and begin to drill a hole in the general boat, thus endangering the whole group. This can eventually lead to great problems in the group’s advancement.
So all the groups should openly share among them what happens in every group. Everything should be known, like in one family, in one body. We should organize and establish a committee that will fulfill the ideological leadership of all the groups as one group. The committee should be above all the local groups and should always know what is happening in every group and be able to decide what and how things should be done in every group according to our criteria and our principles.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Conversation About the Group”
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From an article by Rabash, “What is Half a Shekel in the Work”: There are two factors that make a person escape the work, even when he begins the work in order to adhere to the Creator, since after a person begins to follow the path of the truth, his lowliness is revealed to him from Above, which means that the more he overcomes the more he receives the hardening of the heart from Above, so that there will be room for the Light of the Torah, called letters, which helps him reform, to be revealed.
This means that there is no Light without a vessel, and so by the hardening of the heart, the deficiency is revealed to the fullest. And the Creator knows when it is to the fullest and when the vessel is complete. So sometimes a person escapes the work, when he sees that he has already prayed enough as he sees it, and the Creator does not pay attention to him. It says “and the poor will not diminish,” which means that a person should not diminish himself, and say that the Creator cannot help a lowly person like him. It says “the Lord is sublime and He will see the lowly.
Sometimes a person leaves the work because he knows that he is rich, which means that he has a lot of Torah, a lot of good deeds, and he knows that he is above others. So when he asks the Creator to help him do everything in order to bestow, why doesn’t the Creator turn to him? He knows that he has already prayed so much for that, so he says that the Creator doesn’t want to answer him and so he escapes, but “a person must always overcome.”
“A person must always overcome” means that in every direction, in every sense, he has to keep the straight line which he should follow in order to reach the goal.
This line is like a route that is limited on both sides. On one side towards his ego, there is the feeling of self-lowliness, his self-submission. On the other side, there is his adhesion to the group, in faith above reason, above his small animal mind, which doesn’t let him see the next state, the upper level. Thus a person advances.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, “Conversation About the Group”
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Baal HaSulam, “The Giving of the Torah”: …we must understand that the rest of the 612 Mitzvot (precepts) in the Torah, with all their interpretations, are no more and no less than the sum of the details inserted and contained in that single Mitzva (singular for Mitzvot), “love thy friend as thyself.”
There are 613 “commandments,” that is, 613 actions that lead to correction. We should alter intentions that are associated with the desire to receive from egoistic (for the sake of receiving) into altruistic (for the sake of giving). When we do so, it means that we have “fulfilled a commandment.”
The number of commandments is defined by the amount of individual desires to receive which the vessel of the soul encompasses. It is divided into two parts:
Top Galgalta Ve Eynaim (G’E), 248 desires
Bottom AHP, 365 desires
The intention to receive is called the “evil inclination”; whereas, the intention to give is called the “good inclination.” The action per se remains the same. We can differentiate between good or bad actions only by intentions that stand behind them. Thus, a process of correction is in fact a modification of intentions. If it is self-oriented, then it is considered to be the evil inclination; if it is focused on our neighbors, then it is good.
Eventually we have to correct 248 and 365 desires; all together they comprise 613. However, in reality we only correct 612 desires, since the last commandment (the one about love) remains “problematic.” As Kabbalists say, by improving 612 desires, we will attain love. In other words, from love of friends we come to love the Creator.
Then I call it my “hater” and demand correction from the friends, who are near and far, from anywhere. I discover where correction is, how to realize it, how to overcome my inclination. And I do so until I feel the need to turn to the Creator.
It will not happen immediately. I can scream now, but then the egoistic desire grows, and the thought of the Creator becomes unbearable. I hate Him, I am ready to destroy Him, anything but not to turn to Him. I think that I am required to do the impossible, as if instead of destroying the enemy, I have to love him and help him. It is very hard. And then, feeling hopeless, desiring to achieve bestowal in spite of everything, I turn to the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/12, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”
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Question: You say that we lack unity in our intentions while reading The Book of Zohar, what does that mean?
Answer: We deal with corrections, and a correction is made by the force that created us; this force is called the Light that Reforms. It created, shattered and corrupted everything on purpose so that from the special corruptions we find ourselves in we will be able to understand and to attain the wholeness.
But in order to be able to ascend from our corruption we need the force to operate on us. This force comes only if we first want to be corrected, if we feel a deficiency in its action. Then it operates in perfect accordance with our deficiency in quantity and in quality.
This means that we have to know in advance which corrections this force is going to perform. But we don’t know which corrections are required, so how can we summon it? This is why we are given a kind of a game in our state in which we play connection and unity and getting closer to one another in discussions, as if we are corrected, as if we want to be corrected, as if we want to connect, etc.
If we are drawn to that during the game, since nothing more than that is required of us, if we fulfill this at least in some connection with the correction, the Light operates and influences us. There is a kind of an agreement: I do it “as if” and you do it “for real.” The lower needs to cry out and the upper, in response to these outcries, brings the correction. This is the order of the levels on every level.
So if this is the case, what should we do? All our prayers should only be for connection among us, since this is the correction of the shattering. The connection I try to reach is meant for that, so that I will know that I cannot do that and I need the upper force to do it.
So on the one hand, I am drawn to connection, and on the other hand, I know that I can’t fulfill it without the upper Light. Then the Light comes and does the work. This is the whole action.
This means that the preparation for the receiving of the Torah is a deficiency for the action of correction. The Torah itself is the method of connection, and the upper Light is the force that brings me the connection. There is nothing else but that.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/28/12, The Zohar
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Question: For four days in a row we held workshops with different groups of people. But the most interesting thing is that the intensity of our working in a single breath united our entire group. I don’t know about the people for whom we held the seminars but we changed dramatically during the course of these events.
Answer: I’ll tell you that I see myself changing depending upon how the group is changing. After all, I didn’t go through these actions because I had a different, a more individual method of attaining the upper world, which has been used by Kabbalists for thousands of years. And here when a group is experiencing practical unification and I am on the sidelines participating at least somewhat, I feel how good and productive this work is.
This is why I understand you and I advise everyone who is listening to us today to try in any way possible to participate in our workshops.
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From the Virtual Lesson 10/21/12
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Question: You say that nature will force us to use everything around us correctly. What does “use correctly” mean?
Answer: It means that we should be using everything for the sake of good connections between us.
All of us are constituents of one huge integral organism, which is supposed to work as cogwheels in a single mechanism, in alignment with one another; not so that one is squeaking, the other wheezing, and the third turning the other way with all its teeth broken.
It is necessary that we all feel each other, know each other, understand the overall plan, and know where we have to turn so we are all good. It cannot be that one is better at the expense of another; it is one mechanism and it has a rigid structure.
Currently, the connection is not rigid, it is more flexible, there can be loosening between one and another. But little by little the gear teeth enmesh, the relationships become more and more rigid, and the discrepancies with each other will increase our suffering. As this naturally increases, we fear for the fact that if the mechanism is caught in a hitch, that we will be ensnared by a huge world war.
On the other hand, nature begins to put pressure on us from the inside with the unleashing of calamities. And then of course we quickly learn the proper interaction, but it is a very difficult way.
One way or the other, humankind will become completely integrated, fully interoperable, with absolute equality similar to socialism, but with a truly human face.
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From KabTV’s “Building a Social Environment” 9/25/12
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