Excerpts from my future book, A Guide To The Book Of Zohar

In order to prepare us for spiritual development, the Creator rouses two sensations in us. The first is the emptiness of this world, and the second is the aspiration to attain the source of life, the awakening of the “point in the heart.” The point in the heart, like a charge in an electrical field, brings us to a place where we can give it nourishment and fulfillment. This place is the group.

Truly, we can see how people in whom a point in the heart awakens are drawn to each other naturally. It is always the case in human society that people with similar desires draw closer to each other and gather into groups. A group is a place where people realize the connection with their neighbor on a practical level based on new principles of love and unification instead of hatred and isolation.

Therefore, the work in the group is necessary and mandatory in order to reach a revelation of the Creator. It allows a person to truly evaluate his attitude to his neighbor and not to fall into illusions in regard to spirituality or his personal connection with the Creator. After all, the Creator is the quality of love and bestowal that dwells in the corrected connection among us.

Such groups have always been created over the course of human history. By changing their relationships in the group to mutual bestowal and love of people created the necessary conditions for perceiving the Upper, true reality. Reading books in which they wrote about the world they revealed allows us to acquire the enormous experience accumulated by them and to understand how to achieve a new life by the shortest and most effective path.

Such a group is called a group of Kabbalists. Their goal is to unite with each other in the spirit of what is written in the Torah: “As one man with one heart,” “Don’t do unto another what is hated by you,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Thus, they correct themselves and achieve equivalence to the Creator.

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Question: What will help us to look at the group and be able to see only the friends’ strengths and not their flaws?

Answer: The group serves as a magnifying lens or glasses, without which it is impossible to see the Creator. I will be able to see Him only if I look through the group. It is my spiritual vessel and the instrument for the revelation of the Creator.

Only love will help here. Love suppresses our ego, and it starts acting in its opposite form: as the desire to feel pleasure being used for the sake of bestowal. Therefore, the attitude of the importance of friends is crucial.

In corporeal life, when a person forms an egoistic goal, he works in one place, gets paid in another, and purchases something in a third place. None of these places are connected. In spirituality, everything is united in one place: The effort, the reward, the goal itself, and the result are all parts of one whole. This is why it is difficult for us to understand spirituality since we are accustomed to the material world where everything is separate.

However, we have to understand that the friend and I, the Creator and I, people who are far and close, small, big, and equal in relation to me, all make up my spiritual Kli within which I reveal everything, even myself! Until this Kli becomes revealed, I will not exist. It will not be me but a total deception, a chunk of egoism that I identify myself with. When we discover what the collective soul or the group implies, then inside it we reveal ourselves and all the rest.

And for now, I have only the point of breaking, restriction, and expansion that exist outside of spirituality and the Creator. We are given a sensation of being outside of the true reality, in some imaginary dream world. While being in this dream, if I manage to build the true reality that includes the society, the Creator, and my authentic self, then I will be able to enter it. In the meantime, I am only imagining my life.

All of this future reality is the group I need to construct. It is I who build my spiritual world, my soul. In fact, it is my soul that I am assembling from this illusory deceptive reality, from this dream state I have been submerged in, in order to make me my own Creator. In doing so, I, the group, and the Creator come together, and we attain absolute oneness and adhesion.

From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/10, "Concerning the Importance of Friends"

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Dear Friends, please ask questions about the passages from the great Kabbalists. I promise to answer them. The commentaries in brackets are mine.

Who Is a Kabbalist?

The depths of the Creator’s secrets cannot be understood by the human mind [because it thinks egoistically], but only in accordance with Kabbalah [by correcting oneself from egoism to bestowal], learned from great people [teachers] whose hearts have been penetrated [filled] with the Creator’s Light [and who can therefore teach others how to attain it].
– Rav Kook, Orot Kodesh, 1, 101

Only the true righteous [those who have attained the Creator’s quality of bestowal, justify Him, and are therefore called righteous] are capable of understanding [attaining in the quality of bestowal, the Light of Hassadim] the purpose of the world to come [the Light of knowledge, the Light of Hochma].
– Rabbi Nahman of Breslav, Likutey Moaran, Talk 18

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Lesson on “Ascents and Descents”
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“Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah” Item 79
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Kabbalah for the Student, “Spiritual Expressions”
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The flow of the actual story, which waves come at us and in what form is not so important. What is important is that I am always sailing on these waves with the intention of reaching the goal.

The actual story may be expressed in all kinds of forms; this does not matter. The important thing is for me to always stay above the narration of The Zohar and think only about what I want to attain through the reading. I want to attain the force of bestowal!

From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/2010, The Zohar

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We have many different desires inside and each of them must go through correction in a specific order. Depending on the connection of desires inside the soul, a person reveals his connection with other people.

Therefore, we do not know the true reasons for the states we go through, but we have to understand that their order is predetermined. The only thing that depends on us is how to go through them: by way of Light or by way of suffering. In any case, without understanding why it is happening, we will have to accept the revelation of any state as a useful occurrence.

We don’t have any control over the things that are already happening. We have to accept the things that come to us with gratitude, correct them, and move on. We should never try to reject the next state because we thereby refuse to accept the means that are given to us for our advancement.

There are no states that do not facilitate advancement. Therefore, we shouldn’t torture ourselves with doubts: Is this a good state or a bad one? We shouldn’t give them any personal attitude. It’s best to look at the things happening to you “from aside,” as if you are an outside observer. I have to go through this state, and that means I act, go through it, and advance onwards. Everything is for the best (HaKol Le Tova)!

From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/2010, The Zohar

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Everyone thinks that the “enterprise” refers to the work we carry out during the day, whereas group work entails our mutual studying. However, this is incorrect. The “enterprise” is everything that pertains to releasing our materials, media, preparation for various events, and other physical and material work. If we are preparing food for the Saturday meal right now, this pertains to the enterprise. There is a head chef, the people responsible, and workers who execute everything, and it doesn’t matter whether they are volunteers or paid workers.

On the other hand, the group is a unification of ideas where each person annuls his egoism and is willing to unite with others in order to achieve a spiritual state. This is different from how we unite in order to publish a newspaper, a website, a TV program, and so on. All of these actions are group actions in character, but in order to produce a desired result everyone needs to be willing to unite in a pyramid where there is a boss and a subordinate, like in any enterprise. We have to do this in order to release a product.

It doesn’t matter whether people receive a salary or not, what hours they work, and whether they are preparing a meal at the center or shooting a TV program. Even though we initially made a voluntary decision to unite on equal grounds, nevertheless if you are a manager, you give me orders, and as a subordinate I am obliged to execute them.

In other words, as we approach any task, we make a voluntary commitment according to our abilities, and we also make a commitment to follow an order, to stay disciplined and abide by the hierarchy. Thus, on the inside we are all equal; we are a group in the form of a circle. But externally we have a relationship of manager and employee in the form of a pyramid. Nonetheless, everyone unites as one.

Unification at the enterprise is when we unite in order to realize the connection of friends in the framework of the enterprise. We maintain the hierarchy because we wish to maintain our unification. The desire to be in the group obliges me to follow the hierarchy and I bow my head and listen to the person who is appointed as my manager.

Let’s suppose that today I was sent to work in the kitchen and I carry out what I am ordered to do by the team leader. Although I may be smarter and more skilled, the friends decided that we would work according to a duty schedule. I come to my duty and there we are not friends. I need to inspire myself to work by receiving the fuel from the group, but I need to work in a way that is appropriate for an enterprise.

Even though a person might come to our center for just a few hours after his day job, for the duration of these few hours he becomes a worker for the enterprise the same as though he were getting paid for the work. That’s because he comes there in order to receive either spiritual or material advancement. He receives fulfillment and it doesn’t matter in what form! Yet, for some reason people separate one thing from the other and are surprised when someone demands something from them, People think, “Aren’t we friends in the group?” No! We are workers of the spiritual front! We are working for the Creator.

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At each Kabbalah Convention we accumulate a “covering” (screen), the force of mutual bestowal that we are ready to work with. A convention is like a large group. We gather people and unite them, and this makes us ready to carry out a mutual goal like a combat squad. However, if we get together just to sing and dance and then go our separate ways, then what’s the point? A convention has to be the place where we do mutual work!

Depending on the states we go through, we will decide how often we should hold these conventions. As we become more sensitive, we will understand when and where we should hold every subsequent convention, how big it should be, and whether it should be regional or worldwide.

Our entire life will be built upon these mutual ascents and descents and they will also determine all of the work done by our factory. Otherwise what are we living for if not for spiritual advancement? The faster we do all of this work, the faster we will reach the entrance to the spiritual world and start ascending up 125 spiritual levels.

For now we are only learning about how to make this ascent, but it is already very close. Once we go through several more exercises like this, we will be ready to work with the Lights and Kelim. It’s not because we are getting smarter and learning the theory, but because we are building a collective force that is a spiritual vessel.

Through these actions we reveal the common force of the group, its soul. With each convention we build it more and more and start to feel how the Light acts within it. That is how we pass the Machsom.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/19/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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The group is the matter in which I work. It is the place or laboratory where I implement all of my actions. It is, in fact, an aiming device that helps me stay directed at the goal. Otherwise, I would not be able to see it.

Suppose you needed to shoot a target from a cannon. How would you hit it if you couldn’t see it? What would help you aim at the exact point? You would need an outside observer who sees everything from the side, like a third force that aims you.

What is this third force in our case? The Creator is hidden from me and I am far from Him. That is why an observation tower or an aiming device called “the group” is built for me. If I unite with it and aim at the goal from within it, I will definitely hit the target.

I have to consider many conditions, such as “distance,” “wind,” and so forth. I can find all of this in the group. It is hard enough to hit a target in the material world, but even more so in the spiritual world where there is an infinite number of conditions of which I am unaware.

This whole system is concealed from me. Later I will realize that I am actually engaging a very complex and gigantic system, like a baby whose crying makes everyone around him run and keeps entire factories working to provide diapers and baby food for him.

We engage the environment in the same manner, unaware that we are doing so. My connection with the Creator broke, but by building a connection with the environment, I will “hit” Him without a doubt since He becomes revealed within that connection.

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/10, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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