One of the books written during the time of ancient Babylon describes that Abraham set his tent with treats and started inviting everyone who was interested. This is how he explained his teaching to others since back then people did not have all these modern ways of communication.

Many people stayed to continue their studies. He formed a group from them. RAMBAM (a great Kabbalist of the 12th century) wrote that Abraham took a few thousand people with him when he left ancient Babylon.

In the end, together with them, he revealed Kabbalah. He was the first one who outlined Kabbalah and gave us the understanding of it in his work The Book of Creation. He attained great heights, but he did not attain them in detail.

The whole problem in attaining the world is that the first Kabbalists were attaining the upper world in general, on a high level, while we attain it in detail. Back then egoism was underdeveloped, but today it has developed so much that it allows us to enter and research every fine part of myself and through myself, the entire spiritual space. That is, the difference in the generations’ attainment is that they were attaining in general while we attain in details. However, the Light of our attainment passes through their souls and becomes revealed in them through greater Light.

Thus, they have been always revealing Kabbalah based upon the same single principle: attracting the Light to the common desire through the group. This is the way it was during the time of Adam and through the 20 generations of Kabbalists from Adam to Abraham, which are all listed and known to us. And it has continued in the same way.

There was not a single Kabbalist who would have attained spirituality alone, suddenly realizing it and then jumping like Archimedes out of his bath tub, running and screaming about his attainment. This is impossible. This can only happen in external science, but not in Kabbalah.
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From Lesson 3 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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RASHBI composed The Book of Zohar due to the illumination that came to him during the correction in the cave.… This is a great and awesome composition that reveals the depth of the secrets by scrutinizing the Torah itself. And this is called revelation of the Torah in its internality.
– The Ramchal, Adir BaMarom (Mighty on High), 24

Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was revealing the secrets of the Torah, and friends were listening to his voice, connecting with him, and each contributed his part to this unity. Just as the Mishnah was created by the Tannaim: Rabbi Yehuda haNasi was expressing the common opinion and compiling the book.

This is what Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai wanted, that The Book of Zohar would include the articles of his disciples and would be composed on the Torah. For other books speak of private matters, but The Zohar that is written on the Torah is the greatest revelation of the entirety of the Torah. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai commanded Rabbi Abba to write down and arrange everything that the members of his group spoke about according to the order of the narrative of the Torah.
– The Ramchal, Adir BaMarom (Mighty on High), 24
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Kabbalah is a system of knowledge and a method of revelation of the upper force in all of its manifestations, in all generations until the end of our existence in this world. It not only explains to us the purpose of creation, what is happening, and what will happen; it elevates us!

No other science changes us in any way, they only explain how we can benefit ourselves with their help, to somehow improve the world around us; whereas, the wisdom of Kabbalah is a method of raising a person from our world into the upper one.

By studying Kabbalah, you begin to ascend, to change your inner shape, and to alter your essence. You begin to open your eyes to yourself and the entire world, and truly ascend to your next level. It is no ordinary science where you stay on the “outside” detached from it; it is a method of self-transformation, ascension. This is perhaps the most fundamental part of it.

Let’s hope that, eventually, through our circulation, we will reach a state when people will know what kind of a method it is, and all of science will once again re-unite. How clearly and concisely Paracelsus expressed this in his treatise “Paragranum” [Das Buch Paragranum]: “Study Kabbalah (artem cabbalisticam), it will explain everything to you!”

Today each science exists in its narrow scope, and in each there are thousands of different niches occupied by scientists who don’t how to talk to each other. Kabbalah, however, is intended to re-unite all of these sciences together, to serve as a common basis for them, and to elevate everything to the single purpose and one common knowledge. That’s what makes it so special.

Ultimately, a person understands that the world he or she is living in is unified, whole, global, and integral, which is what all of us should be aspiring for today.
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From Lesson 3 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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As we ascend the spiritual degrees, we experience different contradictory, confusing states when we do not understand anything. It happens that you as if completely lose your mind. After all, when you go from one state to another, your desire changes.

The mind is acquired together with the desire; it only serves the desire. The greater the desire, the more your mind grows to serve it, to help it get fulfilled. This is the way we operate.

When your desire becomes replaced with another one, you acquire a new desire, and your previous mind disappears. And between degrees you feel as if all the information was deleted from your “computer,” and you no longer know how to operate. They say that Baal Shem Tov even forgot letters and had to learn to read “from the beginning.”

This is a special state. This way man is being shown that he is just a machine. A desire disappears, memory disappears, and you feel that you no longer know how to do the simplest hand or leg movements, not to mention having to remember the names of people or things that happen around you.

This can appear to be a mental abnormality. But at the same time, a person understands and feels that all of this is happening to him; he as though analyzes himself from aside. There is a point where you feel: “This is happening to me. Look at me! Right now I am an empty vessel that lacks sensations and mind. I will receive a new sensation and mind!”

This is an absolute replacement. You acquire a new “computer,” and you need to load it with new programs; everything has to be done from the beginning. This is how we advance.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Until unity becomes a vital need, it will not come to life. We have two options: Either we emphasize the importance of unity among us, or all our other actions except unification will still bring the Light that Reforms, but it will be affecting us negatively, by demonstrating to us how disconnected we are. Then, we will finally unite out of necessity, as a result of pain and suffering.

Suppose I don’t wish to maintain my health and gradually ruin my organism until I start feeling that it is in trouble. This feeling forces me to begin the rehabilitation of my body.

Neither do we in the group maintain spiritual health; we don’t maintain unity. However, we do study, circulate Kabbalah, and perform various different kinds of actions. These acts draw the Light that Reforms. In the end, it will show us what the problem is. If we were not doing all this, we wouldn’t feel there is a problem. So, there is a certain benefit to it: It will help us realize that we are missing the point.

You want to find the Creator. Think about the “place,” the desire, where He is revealed. There is no Light without a Kli (vessel).
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Excerpt from the speech at the 3rd World Spirit Forum “Toward Integral Consciousness” in Arosa (Switzerland), January 23, 2006:

If the cell of a living organism starts acting egoistically with regard to other cells, it becomes cancerous, kills the entire body, and, as a result, itself. A cancerous cell is continuously dividing. It devours all around it, having no obligations to them and no reactions to the organism’s commands.

As a matter of fact, this is the key to all the problems, not only the cancerous ailments. Our egoism develops such characteristics, although balance where everything lives according to the principle of equilibrium, harmony, and striving toward a comfortable state is instilled in Nature at all levels, be it the still, vegetative, or animate one. One way or the other, everything exists solely to maintain balance and grow toward it.

However, we don’t understand the problem correctly, and our view on the imbalance of forces is erroneous as well. The lack of balance in Nature is necessary in order to bring it to even greater harmony. We always advance by way of two states: balanced and imbalanced.

Initially, we existed in a perfect balanced state between minus and plus. All systems of our organism were working fine, Then, nature created in us an imbalanced state, and the negative outweighed the positive.

Why was it made so? It was done so that we would bring ourselves to a better state. How can we possibly bring ourselves to a balanced state? The negative is given to us from Above, by Nature, while we must balance it with a greater positive force, equal to it. This action is produced specifically by us.

Thus, Nature forces us to compensate ourselves, intentionally making us imbalanced. As soon as we have brought ourselves to equilibrium, it again creates in us an additional minus, from Above, and we must bring this minus to plus, to a balanced state, on our own.

Thus, we advance if we understand correctly that in this manner Nature wishes to elevate us from one degree to the next. At first, our egoism was valued at zero. Then, it acquired value minus one. Next, it gained an altruistic value plus one, and again, minus two egoistic degrees, then plus two altruistic ones, and so forth. This is how Nature makes grow.

If we understand this principle, then we pass through the “minus” states of descent very easily and come out to the states of ascent. Everyone who walks on the spiritual path feels this.

“Yesterday I felt so good. I understood and knew everything, experienced the subtlest sensations. Everything became nice and easy in my head, but today I feel a block. Nothing is clear; I feel nothing, and I hate everything. This is all so stupid. What am I doing? All of these so-called friends….”

For us, right now, it is exactly so. That’s why we should record our states. It will clarify what we are like and how we pass through them. Later, we will gradually realize that descents are given to us so we may compensate for them with ascents. By going through such step-by-step actions, we do advance, but only if we understand what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, people usually do the opposite. Instead of enhancing the plus, they want to annihilate the minus. This is where Kabbalah warns: “Don’t do it!”

Minus is all our energy, all our understanding, all our awareness. The greater a person is in his desire, the higher he stands. He can do more, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. The key is a great desire. Do not ever destroy it or lower it to a vegetative degree.

After all, egoism is our vehicle, our instrument, which helps us move forward. We must not eliminate it, we can’t anyway. We are constantly growing egoistically and have come to an egoistic crisis today, precisely so that we now could start using and realizing our desire correctly.
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From Lesson 2 Berlin Convention 1/28/2011

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Writings of Rabash, Dargot HaSulam “When the Creator Loves Man”
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The Book of Zohar, Weekly Torah Portion “Terumah,” Selected Excerpts
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“The Study of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”
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Shamati #1, And only if that person has a true desire will he receive help from Above. And he is constantly shown how he is at fault in his present state.

What is the help from Above? It is that you are constantly pushed into your own inner filth, into your egoism, and are shown your own insignificance. This is what the Creator does: He constantly shows a person a huge, black darkness inside of himself, a garbage dump in his thoughts, desires, intentions, and calculations.

Why? It is only in order for him to come to need the Creator, to bring him to a state where he will no longer be able to stand his own stench. To do this, it is necessary to constantly pull him out of this feeling and to show him a different existence—one that is slightly higher, lighter, and higher than his egoism. Then he once again has to be shoved face-first into his own egoism: Look at yourself, see who you are. And then he once again has to be slightly pulled out of that swamp, and then once again thrust head down.

That is how everything happens until a person comes to feel that he really does not have any “holiness” or spiritual purity, and that everything comes only from his personal, small, egoistic being that was created in him and in which he was created.

Although he occasionally receives awakening from Above, which momentarily revives him, but soon after he falls into the place of baseness.

Of course, all of these are the Creator’s actions. But that doesn’t matter because a person feels them upon himself and inside himself. All we are is the sensation. There is nothing else in us besides sensation and we realize only what we feel. The mind only accompanies the feeling.

However, this is what causes him to come to [finally] realize that only the Creator can help and really bring him closer [to perfection]. This need or demand for perfection gradually ripens inside us precisely from these opposite states.
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From the 4th lesson of the Berlin Convention on 1/29/11

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Question: What is the connection between depression and our nature?

Answer: Depression is a sensation of emptiness in desire. There are desires but no fulfillment. It is the most vivid manifestation of our nature. After all, the Creator created desire, and this desire yearns to be fulfilled. This is our essence.

The collective desire where we all reside or every individual, little desire it is comprised of requires fulfillment. When desire lacks inner fulfillment, the question is where the fulfillment is. If it is somewhere near and the desire feels that it is close but not inside, then depression occurs.

If this fulfillment never existed in the first place, there would be no depression. Who knows what kind of emptiness I feel? How does some African peasant know that he lacks a laptop or a washing machine? But if future fulfillment, which could be but isn’t in you yet, appears in your vision, your sensation, it gives rise to depression.

Thus, depression characterizes not a primitive person, but rather someone advanced. And the farther we move forth, the more depression there will be since desires mature and so does the awareness of the lack of their fulfillment.

It is evident how for the last forty years depression has been getting more wide-spread in humanity. Today it is one of the top problems. Moreover, it has also become an illness. It will keep growing, and there will be no way to stop it.

In the nearest future, they will have to legalize and sell drugs to anyone who wants them. Basically, we will be glad to take anything to not feel this depression. But we won’t be able to overcome it anyway. It will come to the point where a person will see the “fix” before him or her but won’t be able to use the drug. Why? Because they will feel that it is not the answer to their question, not the “fix” to their internal void.

Therefore, the battle with depression is the major battle of man with his emptiness that is precisely what pushes him forth. Hence, by the number of those who are depressed, we can judge how close humanity is to becoming aware of its evil.

Nothing will help a person except a decisive, firm, and dynamic engagement in the correct society. Only there will he be able to suppress his or her depression, and very intensively at that: by switching themselves off, by turning off their feelings, and thrusting themselves into the environment as if flinging themselves into the water. There is no other medicine but the influence of the environment. And as a result, fulfillment will come and immediately eliminate one’s depression.
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From the 2nd lesson at the Berlin Convention on 1/28/11

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Kabbalah becomes revealed to every person individually and to the entire mankind in order to answer their questions. People do not care for theory, the quantity of angels in the sky, or the upper Partzufim. They are concerned about one thing only: They need to fulfill their desires. And eventually, they will feel that Kabbalah seems to have the answer.

So far people do not know what they want, but as we disseminate Kabbalah we need to explain to them where they can find what they are searching for. It is like a mother who can feel by looking at a child what he needs, what is good and bad for him. She knows why he cries, what he wants, and where he hurts.

We need to feel humanity in the same way, prevent the blows, and as this desire grows, begin to develop it a little bit ahead of time in order to direct it towards goodness and to avoid suffering. There is no need to wait for horrible hunger to manifest and make people suffer. We need to provide people with fulfillment ahead of time. Let them try and see! We need to explain to them where their desire is directed. This is what the dissemination of Kabbalah is about.

Those who are for now satisfied with their lives need to be left alone. And the rest need the explanation about where they can find fulfillment to the emptiness they feel. People need to understand that a special desire is being revealed in them right now.

So far it completely lacks shape. It needs to be “formatted” and “wired” with a new program or system, like a computer disc which so far is merely a dead piece of metal or plastic, and we need to “bring it to life” in order to learn to work with the programs and data. Then we will be able to use this desire of ours.

In order to do all of this, we need a special force which we receive through our efforts in the group, study, and listening to the teacher. And this way we gradually “reformat” ourselves, and to this extent we begin to adopt new, spiritual information which gives us fulfillment and helps us find our bearings in life.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/2011, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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