Question: Eventually we have to realize that we want to unite but cannot do so. But why do I keep forgetting about this?

Answer: You aren’t forgetting about it. Baal HaSulam has an article called “The Wondrous Quality of Remembering” which explains how it’s impossible to remember and then forget something. It’s simply that Reshimot are surfacing and passing in me.

Therefore, you shouldn’t be sorry about something you forgot from the past or something new that emerges that you don’t want. You have to accept every state as a working exercise and realize it. I need everything I have. I see myself after something has surfaced in me and I begin working from that point.

No matter what desires or thoughts awaken in you in order to confuse you with these unexpected “surprises” or infinite repetitions, they won’t go away until you realize them to the end, until you decide that this thought is not fit and you do not want to focus on it, or that it is desirable and you do want to realize it until the end. Nothing goes away until you make that final analysis.

The speed of realizing your desires and thoughts depends on your willingness to tolerate and ascend above them by working with faith above reason. In other words, it depends only on how included you are in the environment.

Question: Why do I have to tolerate this?

Answer: Because you are obligated to not run away from these desires, but to preserve them and analyze them, rising above them.

For example, I get some unpleasant thought. Then I become included in the study and the group, keeping a distance between myself and the disturbance that worries me. And I decide for myself that one is more important than the other. And I keep going that way until this bad thought gets discarded to the very bottom and disappears. That is how I analyze it. After that it keeps happening over and over again until I “trample” it completely.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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The science of Kabbalah talks about the spiritual world and the forces operating in nature. These forces influence the matter of our world, creating various images in it, which results in an entire universe with everything filling it: still objects, vegetation, animals, and people. But we see all of this on the screen in the reverse part of our brain, and that is why it seems to us that this is in front of us. That is how we imagine reality.

That is why the science of Kabbalah is separated from this entire false picture, even though this picture is what helps us to attain the depth of creation, its intentions, and the Creator’s character. Yet in essence, the science of Kabbalah teaches us how to go from this external picture to the inner, true state where only two forces remain—the force of the Creator and the force of creation.

Of course, each of them divides into many more parts, particular forces and actions. But in essence it is talking only about forces: the will to receive, the will to enjoy, and what happens between them. This makes up all science.

If a science talks about the interaction of these two fundamental forces, then we have the science of Kabbalah. And if it talks about various results from them on different levels of matter—still, vegetative, animate, and human, then we have the sciences of this world.

Of course, these sciences are true because they give us knowledge about the external behavior through which the action of these two inner forces is expressed. But these sciences are very limited and we can only rely on them within the boundaries of our narrow world.

It turns out that the science of Kabbalah, which explains the two fundamental forces operating in nature, is the basis for all other sciences. And that does not include just the natural sciences that study nature and the external world, such as physics, chemistry, biology, and zoology, but also those belonging to man directly, such as music, dance, and art.

All of this is also part of the “seven fundamental external sciences” because it gives us knowledge about man’s abilities to perceive and sense his world.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Question: Where do we get the strength to tolerate the corrections?

Answer: From the environment. A person by himself does not have the strength to move forward one inch. If the group gives you the realization of the goal’s importance, indicating how lowly and despicable the current state is, then you will have the forces to awaken from this state to a better, more advanced state.

Stated differently, bestowal becomes better in your eyes even though it seemed worse to you before. You used to think, “Why do I have to bestow and unite with the friends? This is repulsive to me. I am incapable of it.” But the friends show you that this is development. You see that everyone aspires to this and then envy, a passionate desire, and pride move you toward the same thing. And then you are already able to do it.

However, this is so only on the condition that you can lower you head before the environment. To do this you are provided with everything that’s necessary. You have the force of self-rejection, but if you don’t use them, there’s nothing you can do. You have been brought to the group and told, “Take it.” That is where your free choice begins: To take it or not?

“To take it” means to annul yourself, to lower your head. Go ahead, do that and you will advance forward. The smaller and more humble you feel in relation to the friends, the more you will need their help. Then you will be able to receive from them the realization of your own lowliness and the Creator’s greatness in order to advance forward according to this.

If, however, you do not lower yourself before them, then you remain a “rooster” with your head held high, and will remain on the animate degree.
From the 1stpart of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Can a Kabbalist abide by two ideologies simultaneously and be religious at the same time as being a Kabbalist?

Answer: No, he can’t. Kabbalah takes the upper hand over religious ideology. A Kabbalist can carry out all sorts or religious customs as a result of his upbringing, culture, and the traditions of his nation. And I think it’s good to do so. I do not look down on religion.

However, this should not replace Kabbalah because the most important thing for a person is to attain revelation of and adhesion with the Creator. Anything that interferes with this should be removed from this path. What interferes isn’t religion itself, but the false conception of it, thinking that it can replace the attainment of the Creator, that instead of spiritual revelation it’s enough to carry out some kind of material actions, to pray according to written words, and to think that this is sufficient.

This is completely not so. It is written that “Everyone must know the Creator from the smallest of them to the greatest of them.” We have to attain adhesion with Him. Everyone says they agree with this because that’s what is written and it is impossible to argue with it. It’s clear to everyone that we have to attain “the Creator’s work” and to bond to Him. It is also written that the main rule of the Torah is to love your neighbor as yourself. However, people everywhere only talk about this, but do not actually make it happen.

No one even knows what adhesion with the Creator means, how to come closer to Him, and how to become similar to Him. The problem is that religion has replaced the science of Kabbalah after the breaking of the Temple, when the nation of Israel fell from the spiritual level to the material level and all that remained for the people to do was to carry out just physical actions as a tradition in order to commemorate the previous spiritual actions.

Now we have to learn to ascend back to the spiritual level and add the attainment of the Creator to these national traditions. Religion seems to stop a person, telling him that it’s sufficient to make just the mechanical actions that are carried out by religious people.

However, many source texts say that it’s not enough to make just the material actions, that the Creator does not care how you slaughter an animal—in a kosher manner or not, and that the commandments were given in order to correct the creatures by them. This means that the action has to be supplemented with the right intention.

The intention is the most important thing, in fact, it is the person himself. What is important are his thoughts and desires, rather than the actions. A religious person usually does actions by habit, having been raised from childhood to make them without thinking. There is no correction in doing so.

That is why we want to supplement tradition, the customary way of life, or what is called religion, which we perceive as a nation’s culture or tradition, with “the Creator’s work,” meaning the inner work of a person whereby he corrects his desires in order to become similar to the Creator. Adam, man, means similar.

Every person, secular as well as religious, has to understand that Kabbalah can add something to his life. It adds the revelation of the Creator, the upper force that controls everything. And when you see it, understand it, and feel it, then you understand how to go forward without making mistakes, both in this world and in the “world to come,” the spiritual world that becomes revealed to you.

We do not attain the revelation of the Creator by religious actions, but by uniting with others. However, these actions do not become canceled. They are simply like a branch symbolizing the spiritual root, and a person can remain in that culture. This is a custom that does not interfere with one’s advancement, but neither does it help him. It simply reminds you that spiritual actions exist, and that is why it was preserved throughout the years of the exile.

The Creator does not care about your physical actions. He only cares about the intention you put into them.
[35864]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “What Does It Mean the World Was Created for the Torah”
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The Book of Zohar — Introduction: “The Ninth Commandment,” Item 233, “The Tenth Commandment,” Item 237
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 8, Item 88, Lesson 49
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” Lesson 5
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My Good Environment – Dr. Laitman’s Advice for the Week

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Question: Why is spiritual work also called a “yoke” or “burden”?

Answer: It’s because a person has to accept it by faith above reason. Every time he is about to become corrected, he is inside an egoistic desire. Therefore, when taking this work upon himself, which is aimed at the intention for the sake of bestowal, he does not see any benefit in it and perceives it as a burden.

My correction cannot be based on profit. If something is profitable for me, then I am acting egoistically. And on the contrary, if I accept the quality of Bina into my desire for pleasure, with Bina being above Malchut, then Bina becomes a “yoke” for me—something that lies above reason, feeling, and all calculation.

How can I achieve this? I tune into the environment and it influences me, showing me that it’s worthwhile to do this. This way, there is a benefit, after all, but it is of a different sort: It is evoked by the environment instead of coming from my own considerations. Then, while being under the social influence, I receive the realization of the goal’s importance from it.

Without this importance I would not be able to work, but it is built on preferring bestowal over reception. I would not be able to do this by myself. Only the environment can obligate me and change my values so much that I will nevertheless desire this.

That’s what it means to accept “the yoke of heaven.” This is impossible to do without an environment that builds the appropriate value system inside of me. In addition, I work above reason, above the rational approach, above logic.

It would seem: Why should I bestow? What will this give me? I cannot explain to my egoistic desire that bestowal is worth a thing. How will I feel better? Fine, if I would see at least some kind of potential benefit, then I would agree to it, but here we are talking about a real “burden,” where I have no justification for this work in any way. However, the group helps me to realize its importance and then I nevertheless work.

Without this importance I would not be able to work. I would not be able to devote even a tiny bit of attention to bestowal. That is why the group as a means is as important to me as the goal.
[35822]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: The Book of Zohar talks about the inner states of my soul. But I don’t understand: What state do I have to imagine?

Answer: You have to imagine the state of gradual unification among everyone, the unification of all of us together. This is your soul. It’s when you try to unite everyone into one whole. If I make efforts to this end, this is my soul. If someone else does it, then it’s his soul.

Each of us is like a cell in a body that is trying to attach the whole organism to it. By doing so you acquire the entire body or desire and it is called your soul.

If for now you are only taking a part of the body and connecting to it only to a specific measure, then you have a partial soul. This means that you are on the path, on the ladder of the degrees.

But when you come to the conclusion of the path and attain the end of the ladder, the highest degree, Malchut of Infinity, there everything merges into one without any boundaries and with no end. However, each of us imagines the same Malchut of Infinity from his personal point of view because every person has his own root of the soul. Therefore, not one person becomes nullified when this happens. No one cancels their independence.

The only thing we have to discern while reading The Book of Zohar are the forms of connection among us. Each separate cell has just a desire. This is the entire wisdom of Kabbalah—it is the connection between desires because that is how they create unification, the entire might of Malchut.

For example, a computer does not contain anything besides a plus and a minus. But billions of connections between them form all of its might and abilities. Likewise, the entire work of our brain is based on countless connections between a plus and a minus, the will to enjoy and the will to bestow. They can unite to a greater or lesser extent, to a different degree, or not unite at all. There is nothing besides this. Yet out of the enormous accumulation of all the possible parts, consisting of different variations of connection or its absence between a plus and a minus, you get tremendous wisdom and truly Divine might.

Therefore, this is exactly what we are discerning, the forms of connection between these tiny parts or souls.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, The Zohar

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In preparation for the Convention at the Dead Sea:
Question: In four days a special Convention will be held at the Dead Sea. How should we prepare for it in order to attain the greatest possible advancement there for our entire group, our one big family?

Answer: Soon we will get together at this Convention at the Dead Sea and let’s hope that from this place, the lowest point on earth, we will be able to rise to the greatest height.

I am happy that we are organizing many meetings like this and hope that we will give the whole world our inner concentration and the force of our unity. Let’s stay together!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/20/11, “Introduction to the book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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