If you don’t see a strong yearning for spirituality in your friends, if you don’t get impressed by the environment, or get inspired to bestow, it means that you don’t invest yourself into the environment. Start investing into the friends and you will see how they influence you in return.

The formula is very simple: I connect to a group and together with everybody achieve the state whereby we start influencing each other. Our circle turns into the spiritual vessel (Kli). All of our desires for spirituality, our points in the heart, unite in it, and above them, we build an anti-egoistic screen, our mutual bestowal.

Now that we influence each other, we have to examine whether or not we do so for the sake of bestowing to the Creator. If yes, then we have a screen and the Reflected Light. The Upper Force becomes immediately revealed to us, according to the equivalence of form. The formula is very simple: “I” –> group –> soul!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

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Baal HaSulam writes in the “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 2:  “…that there is one famous and painful question which is asked by everyone on earth: “What is the meaning of our life?” The question pushes aside all other questions and doubts regarding the study of Kabbalah since the years of our lives are so costly to us and bring about so much pain and suffering. Will our lives just come to an inevitable end? Who enjoys them, or to whom do I bring enjoyment?

We see that our life ends without any benefit or result. The more humanity develops, the clearer we understand this. Therefore, disappointment and depression are the foremost problems in the world today.

Many people throughout the generations have tried to answer this eternal question, but it still stands before us in all its strength and bitterness, catching us off-guard, burning in our minds, and shaming us to dust. After all, this question cancels out our very “I,” and man cannot consent to this since it touches upon the root of his soul.

If this did not concern our eternal essence, we could escape this question by turning off our minds with drugs or antidepressants. However, the question about the meaning of life does not pertain to the years of our corporeal existence.

The question, “For what was I created?” comes from my core and directs me to my initial root from which I can learn the reason for my existence. However, for the time being, we manage to be subdued, without thought, by falling into the well-known trap of giving into the flow of life.

We try to fool ourselves in every possible way, but it is becoming more and more difficult to exist according to the scheme: birth, school, university, job, children, old age, and death. We have no choice, in order to solve this question, I need to substitute the environment which helps me forget and hide the question concerning the meaning of life, with an environment that will help me expose it and answer it as quickly as possible.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/24/10, Article “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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A question I received: How can I express my love of friends if I don’t yet exist in the spiritual world?

My Answer: You have to show everybody how keenly you perceive everything, how firm you are in your aspiration to attain spirituality, how willingly you participate in the work and Kabbalah dissemination, how ready you are to unite with the friends and love them, that is, how much effort you put into it.

You have you set an example openly, and this will awaken the others. This is how we behave with our children in this world: We constantly set an example for them, and it prompts them to act. If we want an infant to smile at us, we smile at him.

This is how we should act in relation to a friend as well. If I do something for him, the next moment I get inspired by his reaction. Even if I faked my inspiration by spirituality, it set him on fire, and he awakened. Meanwhile, his inspiration awakens me in truth.

I started with deception and through it became truly inspired. I build the environment for myself precisely in order to assume its desires as a law for myself. I influence the environment all the time, demonstrating my love of friends, the importance of the goal, and readiness to annul myself. In response, I receive from it all the components that help me achieve the Creator. I receive as many times more of these components as there are people in the group. The group supplies me with the corrected forces that I myself lack.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

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Article, “Concerning Love of Friends:”

1. Why do I need love of friends?

Love of friends is the connection among souls.

“I” is my soul, a “friend” is a different soul, but love is the kind of connection between us whereby he becomes more important to me than I am to myself, and, accordingly, I’m more important to him than he is to himself. I have to feel his desires as closer than my own. This is called loving the other as you love yourself.

However, loving the other does not mean feeling the material desires of our world and serving them; rather, it means uniting our desires to attain the Creator. I am building a totally new spiritual construction, the common soul of Adam HaRishon, which has never existed before and which is above all corporeality.

2. Why did I choose these particular friends, and why did they choose me?

Did I really pick these friends? The force from Above has led me to this group. So where does my free will begin? We build our free choice every day, constantly checking why we need to unite with friends:

a.) Do I see in them, and they in me, the point in the heart, that is, the desire to unite and achieve adhesion with the Creator?

b.) What connection should be established in order to discover Him among us according to the law of the equivalence of form?

3. Should each friend openly express his love or it is enough that it is concealed in his heart?

Every one must openly express his love for the group. By doing so, he will increase the love in his friends’ hearts and will be impressed by them. If previously he had only his individual power of love for friends, now he will receive the powers from all the friends in the group.

One must always remember the purpose of the group which is to merge with the Creator.

A Kabbalistic group is founded on love of friends because it is the springboard for attaining the love of the Creator. That is why we must show each other examples of love of another.

4. Is it necessary to know what each friend lacks in order to fill him, or is it enough to love friends in general?

It is enough to love friends in general so as to assure that a friend does not lack motivation, support on the path, inspiration, and the feeling of how important the Creator and the group are, and to provide him with all this to the best of one’s ability.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, Article “Concerning Love of Friends”

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In order for me to cancel myself before the group, I need to see my friend’s merits and not his flaws. I need to see the spiritual, divine point in him:

1. Indeed, the Creator wants him!

2. He is special and great because there is a part of the Creator within him.

3. He has been chosen to be my partner on the spiritual path. When the Creator created him, He knew that I would be able to attain Him only with this friend.

Everyone’s flaws are the “donkey” (matter) that remains down below. But my friend’s flaws don’t matter to me because he works on canceling his evil inclination in the same way as I cancel mine. Only his point in the heart matters to him. All the other corporeal qualities were made by the Creator, and we want to rise with our point in the heart above the desires of the entire heart, our entire “donkey.”

All other qualities of my friend don’t interest me and seem to not exist; I only see this spiritual point within him. It is specifically with this point that I need to unite and not with his “donkey.” It is the same for him with respect to me. This is why we can’t have any problems with each others’ egoism; we simply don’t take it into consideration nor do we work with it. We are building a net using only our points in the heart.

Those who see themselves above others will not be able to unite with them. And how can it be that someone is above others, when everyone only has a point in the heart and nothing else? Our “donkeys” can differ from one another, for example, one is stronger, another is weaker. But the points can’t have any differences; all the elements are equally important in the spiritual because perfection can’t exist without each and every one of them.

I am looking at my friend and I see his corporeal body, his “donkey,” but there is a point in the heart within him. It is not an internal organ; it is a divine part from Above! There is a part of the Creator in you, and I strive towards Him with such might I want to grab on to Him and feel Him!  And all of this is within you. There is no single other place where I could meet with the Creator. Only through creating a connection with these points inside my friends can I meet with the Creator.

I don’t have another opportunity to contact Him. He will only reveal Himself if I grab on to your point in the heart, and his, and his, and…. When I hang on to these points in the heart and cancel myself before them, it means that I am canceling myself before the Creator.

It doesn’t matter that you yourself have not yet been corrected and that you are an egoist. When I cancel myself before your point in the heart, I unite with the element of bestowal, the authentic part of the Creator within you. Thus I unite with the Creator.

The spiritual is right here, between us, and not in some other place, some other world. I can clearly feel this spiritual Kli; the fact that we don’t feel it is our psychological problem.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article, “Purpose of Society”

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The Zohar, Chapter “VaYikra (The Lord Called),” Item 156: The thirteen qualities of Rachamim depend on the Yod, on the upper tip of the Yod, Keter, in which there are the thirteen corrections of Dikna. Hence, the Yod consists of Vav–Dalet, to indicate the ZON within her, from which they become YESHSUT, which is Bina that returned to being Hochma. This is where all the Mochin emerge, and they are the perfection of everything because the filling of Vav–Dalet in Gematria is ten, meaning that they are as important as she.

A question I received: The Zohar talks about letters a lot. What is the connection between the definitions of the letters described in The Zohar and a letter used as a symbol describing how the Upper Governance system influences us?

My Answer: They are the same. Letters are the spiritual vessels through which the Light acts upon us. We can talk about the Light by calling it a letter, such as “Yod,” “Vav,” or “Dalet.” A letter is a property of the Light, which the Light acquired when it has gone through the letter in order to impact us in a certain way. A letter is also a property of the spiritual vessel that has become similar to the Light in order to perceive it.

According to the law of the equivalence of form, it is impossible to perceive the Light unless I am similar to the form through which it impacts me. Suppose the Light enters through “Vav” and acts upon me. Then, I should also acquire the property “Vav,” to assume the form of “Vav” in order to be connected with the Light. But since I myself build similarity to “Vav” from my material, I am not “Vav” any more. My material is now different, and I become the next letter, “Dalet.”

Thus, on the one hand, we have “Yod” (Hochma), whose three letter spelling (“Y-O-D” or “Yod–Vav–Dalet“), shows in what form we can perceive it. When we acquire “Vav” and “Dalet,” “Dalet” will become similar to “Vav.” But aren’t Dalet and Vav two different letters? True, they are different, but they are similar to one another. Since they are created from different material, they acquire appropriate forms. This is why there are so many forms of letters even though each form is bestowal.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/23/10, The Zohar

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Article “Purpose of Society”

In the article “Purpose of Society,” Rabash writes that man is born as loving only himself, and hence he can’t make the tiniest move without serving himself. Yet without renouncing egoistical love in us, it is impossible to reach adhesion with the Creator, the equivalence of His properties.

Therefore, the group is necessary for in it the desires and strengths of each add to one another. Everyone is then able to use this immense common force in order to renounce the egoistical desire that prevents him from fulfilling the purpose he is born for.

The Window Into the New World

The Creator is the force of bestowal, love, and annulment of self. This is why I need the group as an external foreign force that works as a lever which allows me to turn my nature around.

The Kabbalistic Group is a Spiritual Booster

The group is the spiritual model before you. It is given to you in a corporeal form, but we turn it into a spiritual form by relating to it as to a collection of souls and not a group of bodies.

Leave Your Donkeys to Graze Below

In order for me to cancel myself before the group, I need to see my friend’s merits, and not the flaws. I need to see the spiritual, divine point in him:

1. Indeed, the Creator wants him!
2. He is special and great, because there is a part of the Creator in him.
3. He has been chosen to be my partner on the spiritual path. When the Creator created him, He knew that I would be able to attain Him only together with this friend.

The Entry Point into Spirituality

The point in the heart is the Creator in each of us. The Creator exists within every person in the world. However, He manifests openly among the friends of a Kabbalah group since He is the One who brought these spiritual points together so they will unite and come to Him. Therefore, you have to be grateful that this means was given to you.

From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/10, Article, “Purpose of Society”

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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYikra (The Lord Called),” Item 183
We don’t simply read The Book of Zohar, but try together to attract the force that will correct us from receiving to bestowal.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary,” Item 18
A prayer is a desire to adhere to the Creator, to obtain His qualities.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot, Item 2
In the last 15 years the fear of Kabbalah has disappeared. All there’s left to do is to reveal to the world the good that it brings.
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Rav Baruch Ashlag “Love of Friends”
In order to enter a new realm a person needs help from an outside force which is the environment.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “The Donkey Driver,” Item 89
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Preface to the Sulam Commentary, Item 1: First, we must know the names of the ten Sefirot: KHB, HGT, NHYM. These are acronyms of Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, Malchut. These are also the ten coverings of His Light, established so the lower ones can receive His Light.

This is like the light of the sun, which is impossible to look at unless through darkened glass that diminishes its light and make it suitable for the eyes’ ability to see. Similarly, had His Light not been covered by these ten coverings, called “ten Sefirot,” in which each lower one further covers His Light, the lower ones would have been unable to obtain it.

In order for us to exist, the Upper Light had to reduce,to restrict itself, and clothe itself in ten concealments. Due to this, we can feel our existence, be independent, and gradually draw closer to the Creator by assuming His form and adopting His qualities. In other words, we can attain Him gradually, not instantly.

We are separated from the Upper Light by as many as ten degrees. This is precisely how the Light reveals the desire to receive, which can exist opposite to it. Contact between the Light and the desire is possible only through these ten coverings, called Sefirot.

However, one can object that the word “Sefira” doesn’t stem from the word “coverings.” Quite the opposite, it means illumination. A Sefira shines on us if we are in congruence with this Sefira, that is, if we exist in the same conditions and have the same qualities. We ascend the same degrees of the Sefirot that the Light had descended from above-downward so as to be with us, and now we ascend so as to be together with the Light. We meet the Light at a particular degree of this ladder and in accordance with it we count off the Sefirot – the ten garments which the Upper Light uses to conceal itself.

Each new day renews the initial Act of Creation, awakening the ego within us through the ten coverings, and doing so more and more. We must feel ourselves opposite to the Light, for otherwise we will not be creatures.

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/10, “Preface to the Sulam Commentary”

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