Pictures From The Unity Evening In Haifa
Posted on July 8th, 2010
Pictures from the Unity Evening that took place July 1, 2010 Haifa, Israel.
Pictures from the Unity Evening that took place July 1, 2010 Haifa, Israel.
Sometimes a person feels that he is tired, that he needs rest, and that the path is not for him. Even though he knew ahead of time that these states would come, he suddenly forgets what to do. All the articles talk about this. They describe the inner struggle, the obstacles, and how the righteous ascend where the wicked fall. Thus, a person reaches a state where he is really given freedom of choice.
This requires a great deal of luck, where luck means that he was able to set up a relationship with the environment, group, teacher, and Kabbalah books that does not let him leave. He takes on various obligations and participates in all of the group’s actions in order to make habit become second nature. This prevents him from leaving these actions since otherwise those around him will start to look down on him.
If he realizes how weak his nature is and sets up these connections, then he is able to hold on and stay. This is similar to how sailors on a ship’s deck tether themselves to the boat with ropes so the waves won’t wash them into the open waters. They know that they won’t have the strength to hold on in rough seas, and so they tie themselves with tether lines.
You can’t do the tying when you are already being washed away. Everything must be prepared in advance. Sailors understand that they don’t have the strength to overcome the tremendous force of stormy seas that throws them in every which direction.
That is how a person should prepare, and the group must offer guaranteed support so he won’t leave the path even in the stormiest of conditions. The person must also use all of his qualities, such as pride, the common ego, and all sorts of calculations to ensure that he won’t run away from the path and that he will reach the goal.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/10, Writings of Rabash, "And the Children Racketed Withing Her"
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When I turn to The Zohar and begin to read, what am I coming with, what am I bringing in my hands for correction? I am bringing big piles of fragments and broken bonds with the other souls. To the extent I regret that they are broken, I can transfer to The Zohar my desire and my need for unity.
Herein lies our only free will: to increase this desire for unity in one another. None of us feel the need to do this, but by connecting to the group and the environment, I begin to desire what I have never desired before, something I couldn’t possibly come to desire on my own. I begin to feel the need to unite with others, and to ask for this unity.
Therefore, each time before we begin to read The Zohar, we must tune ourselves to feel the values of the group, to come under its influence, to “buy a friend,” to lower oneself before the group so that every individual and the group as a whole will be inspired by the need to unite, and will demand correction, which is the restoration of broken bonds.
With this desire, we will draw the Light of Correction. The Light will not come without a reason. We must know precisely what we want; otherwise it will be hypocrisy and not a prayer.
If we come together to reveal this singular desire for the correction prepared for us by the Creator, we will pray for the correction of the shattering. This plea will be answered from Above, and the bonds between us will be mended. Then, together, we will reveal everything The Zohar wishes to reveal to us.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/10, The Zohar
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The sensation of emptiness depends upon what one is lacking and not on what he has.
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “VaYetze (And Jacob Went Out),” Item 351
The degree of one’s accent intensifies the conflict between the two lines. One can only combine them in the middle line through “faith above reason”.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 2, Part 7, Item 5, Lesson 6
The breaking and mixing of the qualities of Malchut and Bina occurred before the appearance of our world. Now we are “sorting out the effect” in order to make a decision.
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Item 13, Lesson 11
The spiritual world resonated within me; I have to acquire its qualities, tune the strings of bestowal, which will touch upon and reveal to me the Light and its Source.
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Rabash, “And The Lord Appeared To Him By The Oaks Of Mamre”: He asks, why the oaks of Mamre and not in some other place? And he replies, it is because Mamre gave him an advice about his circumcision. When the Creator told Abraham to circumcise himself, Abraham went to seek advice from his friends. …
Mamre told him, “Remember the day that the Chaldeans threw you in the furnace, and that famine that the world experienced … and those kings that your men chased, which you struck, and from whom the Creator saved you and no one could harm you. Rise up and do as your Master commands.”
Every person is a small world, and just like an element of a holographic picture, each contains all the qualities of the world. The only difference is that for every individual, these qualities exist within us in different combinations.
Malchut of the World of Infinity split into a multitude of parts (souls); every part contains all the qualities, but with some desires of the soul presented more strongly and some weaker. The first correction of egoism lies in cutting off all the desires to receive pleasure for oneself. This action is called a covenant with the Creator (in goal) or circumcision (in action). In other words, in order to ascend to the quality of bestowal (the degree of Bina), man performs a circumcision of his desires to receive, separating them from the desires to bestow.
Man is governed by three souls: animate, intelligent, and guiding. One governs him through his feelings, one through his mind, and the third weighs which direction he ought to strive to. These souls animate us, and everything depends on which of them prevails. In the end, we have to make use of all the forces at our disposal, regardless of which makes the decisions and which governs the rest of our properties.
As every person passes through the stages of the ego’s correction, he checks whether his “body” (desires) is prepared to make the decision to join the degree of Bina (bestowal). That is when he acquires a Kli, a spiritual vessel, the desires of bestowal, and performs the correction of “circumcision” cutting off, as it were, the egoistic desires from himself.
He sees that his other desires do not agree with the Creator. He has no strength to correct them, but he is strong enough to cut them off (as it is written, “from the edge of one’s heart”). Afterward, at subsequent degrees, he will even be able to correct them so that they would willingly join the actions of bestowal and help him ascend even higher.
This force or property called Mamre, which man finds within himself, is his preparation (friend) that helps him achieve the property of bestowal.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/10, Article, “And The Lord Appeared To Him By The Oaks Of Mamre”
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It is written that it is prohibited to study the Torah without intention because thereby one doesn’t draw the Light that Reforms and immediately turns the “potion of life” into the “potion of death.” This point of choice is our only choice in life. Hence, when dealing with The Book of Zohar, the only weapon against evil or egoism, we should try to use it correctly.
Obviously, we can’t push the “red button” that would lead the world to harmful irreversible results, but we might step into the states of suffering, which had already happened in the past (see “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Items 70, 71). This is why before reading The Zohar, a person should review a supply of Kabbalistic aphorisms, adages which impress him, which help him to start awakening from the animate level (desire for oneself) to the human level (aspiration toward unity, bestowal, and love).
The human level amounts to the desire to unite with the others. The corrected system of souls is called “Adam” (man). As soon as this system breaks and crumbles into multiple pieces, each of them turns into its solely animate part. The human level (equivalence to the Creator, “Adam” comes from “similar to the Creator”) appears in us only when the broken parts (souls) begin to unite and experience a unified desire.
It turns out that the souls live not within themselves but in the connection among them. It is called life “above reason,” that is, in the relationships among the souls, in mutual bestowal. The sum total of these relationships of bestowal is the Creator who connects us. This unifying force that is dawning in the distance is called “The Surrounding Light.”
Thus, the Creator is the force that actually unifies us, and the Surrounding Light is its manifestation from afar. There is nothing but the Light and the desire (Kli). We assign various names to them, but ultimately, there are only these two forces.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/10, The Zohar
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The story of the creation of Adam shows his creation and subsequent division and multiplication. Biologists maintain that sustainable existence of the biosphere is possible only if bio-geochemical cycles are closed. Otherwise, living creatures will quickly consume all resources and will be intoxicated by byproducts of their vital activities.
However, for the cycles to be closed, there must be a community of microorganisms of different species that share bio-geochemical functions among them. Some microorganisms use resources from the environment and supply it with products of their vital activity, while others use these products and return, as their waste products, the original resource back to the environment. No microorganism can close the cycle by itself as it would be a perpetual motion machine.
It is even more obvious in the chemical pre-life stage. There is no single organic molecule that could persistently self-replicate and maintain homeostasis in the environment. Only complex organisms consisting of a large number of different molecules that have established “mutually beneficial cooperation” or symbiosis are capable of achieving this.
Thus, it is obvious that the first living species was not a single microorganism but a polymorphous community characterized by the active exchange of genetic material. Diversity, symbiosis, task-sharing, and information exchange – rather than the qualities that evolved from a single, organic molecule – are the primal qualities of Earth’s life. Today it is becoming clear that community rather than a single, microbial species stood at the beginning of life’s development on Earth.
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The Creator fills the connection among our souls with Himself. Being closer to the other souls means being closer to the Creator and having an ability to begin perceiving Him filling our interconnection as Light, bestowal, and love. Instead of being momentary, this desire to unite with the other souls should be constant and always growing. If it lights up only occasionally and immediately subsides, it isn’t sufficient. We must strive to sustain and accumulate such states continuously.
Granted, a person cannot achieve this through his own efforts. Man is not able to control his desires and this is why he is given a group. The desires get renewed in a person in two ways simultaneously: according to a chain of informational records (Reshimot) and due to the influence of the environment. A person does not determine anything by himself.
Our error lies in the fact that we listen to our ego that tempts us to affect it by force, thereby pushing us in the wrong direction. The right direction is to induce ourselves but solely through the group. Only through the group can I impact my soul, while on my own, I have no means to reach it directly. My soul resides in my connection with the others, and only through this connection, in this indirect manner, am I able to affect myself.
Can I affect my genes or chromosomes and change something in myself with my own hands? Of course not! But there is a device – the group – with the help of which I can do it. So, I manipulate this device by my leverage: I apply simple corporeal actions and thereby affect my environment. In its turn, the environment can affect me on the spiritual level. The essence of this miracle is an opportunity to keep transforming myself till I become equivalent to the Creator.
Through my physical actions in this world, I influence the other bodies. Others, through these bodies, are able to affect me, my spiritual properties, that is, my soul. I myself cannot impact my soul no matter how much I’d like to. It is a very simple mechanism whose principle is that only connection among us leads to the revelation of the Creator.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/6/10, Article, “And the Lord Appeared Unto Him by the Oaks of Mamre”
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