Question: The term “groups of ten” cannot be grasped by my group, and we don’t talk about it. There is a kind of collective agreement that the group of ten and the group are two different things and that the group of ten belongs more to dissemination. But when we discuss dissemination no one talks about the groups of ten. Why does this happen?

Answer: On the whole I don’t know what the difference between the group of ten and the group is.

A group of ten is a collection of people who can connect and then separate.

A group, however, is more organized, fixed, and connects people. It creates certain conditions around it: It has a building, a certain kind of work, a group is more stable, solid, and versatile.

A group of ten can be organized spontaneously, in order to clarify a certain problem for example. If ten friends who are not in a hurry to get to work now get together, they form a group of ten.

I believe that the groups of ten shouldn’t be fixed. Different members in my group, in the global group, in another group can be members of my group of ten. This morning it is one way and in the evening it can be different, etc. This means that the group of ten is a method of getting together, in order to ascend, to solve a specific problem, to pray, and to form an intention. When people are about to go out to perform a certain activity they gather, and this gathering can also be called a group of ten.

A group of ten is called Minyan in Hebrew, and it stands for a Sefira. It is customary to pray only in a Minyan, (in a group of ten people).

This means that in order to turn to the Creator, we have to be at least ten people. When the group is smaller than that, its prayer is not accepted since one person cannot raise his personal egoistic desire to the Creator. When he annuls it in order to connect to others and they do the same with regard to him, a collective desire is created among them, a common intention.

Let’s suppose that a circle is made of ten people. In this circle all the ten, by annulling themselves one before the other, create a common desire called a “raspberry ball.”

Such a group of ten has a special attribute, since the spiritual levels are in an identical relation to each other, and the group of ten on the first level is equal to 1 on the next level. So in order to ascend from one level to the next, we have to establish such a connection that all the ten people will be as one. This is the whole idea of the spiritual work. So a group of ten is called Minyan stemming from the Hebrew word meaning numbered.

So the difference between the group of ten and the group is very clear. A group of ten is a spontaneous collection of people who have a special desire to connect and to draw away from their ego.

The ego throws each of them backward and then they connect internally against it, yearning to unite. This means that the “raspberry ball” is the sum of the efforts to connect (Σ).

It turns out that each one feels that he is in the circle in the group of ten, detached from himself and connected to the others. Psychologically I have ascended, flown, exited myself, but in fact I have not exited myself to some space and am not flying somewhere meditating. I am together with the others in a special volume of the collective efforts and our common yearnings.

It is in this state that the yearning for the Creator is created. Our collective inner efforts (the next circle) are not just efforts, but MAN, a prayer to the Creator.
[115622]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/25/13, Questions and Answers with Dr. Laitman

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