Question: After the convention, I feel more and more emotional at every meeting of friends, sometimes to tears. Is this indeed happiness and an ascent?

Answer: After the convention, we certainly have begun to relate to unity differently. It is easier to return to it now. It became more exciting and attractive; it no longer seems artificial like before.

We have reached this spiritual reality, the beginning of a spiritual degree. And now we need to join a little more of our effort to it so that it would penetrate within us and grow “flesh,” thickness of desire, on this point. Then in this thickness, we will feel real, spiritual reality.

Every person should exert effort, constantly returning to that understanding of unity that has already permeated into his sensations. In spite of the current emotional rejection or blurriness of feelings, I try to return to the state we have achieved.

What for? Maybe in order to feel good or in order to proceed further, even without positive sensations. And maybe I feel obligated in regard to the friends with whom we are in mutual guarantee.

The reward can vary, but overall, we all require a craving for unity. This is the most important thing: to aspire to unity constantly no matter where you may be at a given time.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/2011, “The Peace”

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Question: How do I find the right balance between inner work and circulation? How do I keep from pulling too heavily into either side?

Answer: One’s personal advancement depends on the degree of one’s concern for others to draw closer to the point of unity and always remain in it, together.

Every one of us exits and re-enters it on a regular basis, and ultimately everyone is always working with respect to it. Out of this point, out of this “baby” of ours, we form our soul and begin to feel ourselves in it. This is our main objective, and this is our inner work.

Our external work, conversely, is aimed at circulation. Without attracting huge masses of people to ourselves, we will not be able to advance since we will remain in our egos. In other words, our ascension upward hinges only on our expansion outward.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lessons Series 12/11/2011

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Question: The point of unity experienced at the convention felt like a tremendous jolt of bliss, freedom, and optimism, alien to our world. It was literally like a separate world, toward which my ego ran with great joy. And yet you were saying that the ego should be resisting this?

Answer: Don’t worry about your ego. It will come and start dragging you away from this state “by the ear,” and you will need to aspire to it again and again. It is precisely your ego that will now start distancing you from the point of unity, and you’ll need to actualize and reconstruct it within all the time.

This reconstruction is necessary not because it’s fun, but because all your friends are standing behind it. You must gradually come up with brand new motivations for what you do so as to support your friends because without you, they will not be able to locate this point.
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From the Sunday Virtual Lessons Series 12/11/2011

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Here are some pictures from the World Arvut Convention in Tel Aviv, December 6-8, 2011.

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We always need to check whether we are advancing correctly and acquiring a new force of desire and the intention to use it for the sake of bestowal and in no other way. So how do you evaluate yourself to see whether you are facing the Creator, heading toward Him?

For this purpose, apart from the Creator, we need another point of reference that provides the required conditions for advancement. It turns out that the solution is quite simple. Using the Light, we can increase the point of desire created by the Creator. Breaking it down into pieces, we can feel ourselves in contrast to the Light. The force of egoism and mutual separation stands between us. Instead of the power of love and bestowal, it is the force of reception, the quality of the ego, which is opposite to the Light.

When we begin to feel these pieces and try to become closer to one another, working against their desire, we will necessarily attain the goal: adhesion with the Creator. It turns out that connecting these distanced and opposite desires and connecting to the Creator is the same thing. This is because we become similar to the Creator, the Light, to the same extent that we become closer to each other.

This is why it is so important to love your friends and connect to the group. The laws and actions that we carry out as we connect with each other are the same laws and actions we need to carry out in relation to the Creator. In this way, we attain connection, love, correspondence, and adhesion, everything that is contained in the goal of creation, as it is written: “From the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”

We are given an initial point, and having it and our desire, we are in the beginning of “a field which the Lord hath blessed.” We must cross this field without becoming lost in it. This is only possible by connecting with friends.

When we are unable to work the proper way or when we try doing it but are unable to for reasons that do not depend on us, we enter the Egyptian exile, even though this is also a stage of the journey we must experience. However, it is only possible to come to this after getting lost in the field. This wandering around in the field is called the Egyptian exile.

Then, this field takes us out of Egypt. There, we receive the method of correction called the Torah to correct ourselves. This field turns into the desert and later, into the land of Israel. However, all of this is the same field, the same desire to enjoy that we must make similar to the Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What is the power of The Zohar if, for now, we don’t understand anything in it?

Answer: The power of The Book of Zohar doesn’t depend upon how much we understand. It depends upon the author: the level from which he wrote it, the strength of his intention that the reading of this book would radiate a special Light on us, and the extent to which we can use this Light. But it has nothing to do with understanding the book. You don’t have to understand anything.

If I have to get to a certain place now, I choose the best and most convenient means of transportation that can bring me to that place. It may be a train, a plane, a car, or a camel. What difference does it make? The main thing is that I will feel good and comfortable.

The Book of Zohar is the best, most convenient, most effective, and the strongest means for those who wish to advance. I am told how to operate it. After all, I don’t know how a plane’s engine operates. I simply buy a ticket and fly.

It is the same here. When I reach my destination, and even on the way, I begin to understand what is going on, but not before. For example, if fly to New York for the first time, do I know what New York is like? Where it is? Nothing! I only heard about it, but I don’t know anything. I use some means of transportation that gets me there. I believe the people who know, who have already been there, and who have discovered and attained this means. I enter it, I reach my destination, and then I realize: “Ah! Now I understand…!”

The principle is the same, there is no difference. Even in our world, when it comes to corporeal things that are totally revealed and can be felt, we act the same way. So why do you expect to find in spirituality what we don’t have even in this world?
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: However, when we examine the acts of an individual, we shall find them compulsory. He is compelled to do them and has no freedom of choice.

We are the desire to receive created by the Creator. This desire responds only to pleasure or its lack, which is pain. Thus, we can experience either positive or negative feelings.

In the first case, a person feels good and comfortable, so he wants to remain in this state. What fills us exactly, and where do we feel the pleasure? After all, we are not just talking about a glass that we fill with water.

Pleasure comforts, and this is especially evident in children: If we make a baby feel good, he’ll become tranquil. This is the response of the desire to receive, and at that  moment it doesn’t need to change. In fact, it can’t change because the pleasure completely fills the desire.

When we feel pain, it is exactly opposite. A person can climb the walls and not find a place to rest.

There are deep-rooted reasons for these responses. Peace and pleasure are like a copy of the Light, the Creator, embodied by the mother. They bring appeasement—and the baby becomes tranquil.

So, we respond to two things only: pleasure or pain. However, in addition to the desire to receive, internal processes take place through four phases of development. Combined, these phases create a kind of internal volume, where input and output are compared: what enters me, how do I respond, and what ultimately comes out.

As a result, a person’s mind develops. The Light enters and evokes either positive or negative feelings, as well as positive or negative realization. Here everything depends on the “input and output module” from this “box” of the four phases, which checks whether the input signal corresponds with the goal.

Thus, besides the pleasure and pain in its pure form, we have the opportunity to study and accumulate experience. Consequently, we build a scale of “true or false” and understand that a good feeling can be false, while a bad one can be true. It enables us to hold on to the truth and if necessary, to change the input signal from minus to plus or from plus to minus.

This is the role of the four phases, through which the response of our desire moves toward awareness and understanding. It overcomes distance, divided into four parts according to the structure of HaVaYaH, and this provides us the opportunity to  compare the input and output.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, “The Freedom”

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At the beginning of creation, we were in a state of perfection due to the upper Light and did not have any private desire. Now, we are returning to the same state and exist inside the upper Light due to our own desire. This desire we have acquired does not become extinguished; on the contrary, it grows.

Why does it not become extinguished, even after it becomes filled with the Light? After all, we know that when the Light fills the desire, it annuls it. Normally, when I receive what I want, I stop feeling the need for it. I have no more reason to strive for it. At first, I feel pleasure, and then it disappears: Both the desire and the pleasure do.

It is a very curious thing that the desire that we acquired does not disappear. We achieve a never-ending desire by connecting with each other.

This is because the one desire that exists in the world of Infinity has divided into a multitude of pieces. These pieces contradict each other; every piece acquires a feeling of independence and distance from the others. This is why, when we begin to connect with each other, we do not cancel our egoism. Instead, we unite above it, above all the differences.

It turns out that we keep our desires despite our connection. When everyone connects with others, each one acquires a full, common desire, the entire Malchut of the world of Infinity, the entire, infinite vessel. And this desire no longer disappears because one will always feel like he is against the rest, opposite to them. However, at the same time, he connects with them with all his heart and soul.

For now, we are unable to understand how it is possible to be simultaneously connected with the others, yet separated from them. How can both be at the same time? This is precisely what we now need to study, from the point of unity we have attained, and to build a middle line.

These two lines, the right and the left, negate one another. If they connect, the right (fulfillment) and the left (desire), they would cancel each other out. However, when they connect though the middle line, they do not become annulled because the middle line connects them and includes them inside of it.

It turns out that, even though there is desire and fulfillment, the fulfillment is accepted in the opposite desire because I want to give to others through it. When I enjoy for the sake of pleasing my neighbor, my pleasure does not end. It does not annul the desire because I am enjoying on behalf of another.

Here, the creature acquires a very special patent, a special method, an ability to increase its vessel to enormous dimensions without any fear of annulling it. The solution lies in our including ourselves in one another and thus advancing, until everyone acquires the entire infinite desire with the entire fulfillment.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Today we come to the question of “what is the meaning of my life?” and suddenly discover the wisdom of Kabbalah. We find it not because we wish to bestow or reach connection, love, and a common concern.

No. We come to it precisely through the question: “What is the meaning of my life? Why do I feel bad?! I want to have power over my life! I want to rise above it, grasp eternity and perfection of nature.” I want, want, want… We come to the wisdom of Kabbalah precisely through egoistic questions, and not by means of a delicate, sensitive soul. On the contrary, we are led by the desire to receive, to take control over our lives.

Thus, when we come to the wisdom of Kabbalah and begin listening to what it talks about, many don’t understand: “Why do we talk about love and unity? Where are we? Is this a kindergarten where we are taught to be good? Is this a society of idealists? What do they want? What are they talking about?!”

Or a person comes to Kabbalah through religion and also doesn’t understand what’s going on: “Who talks about love in religion? It’s true that there are a few similar nice phrases there, but in reality, it’s all about doing actions known to us from childhood.” Today, where is the basis of religions, which once spoke of love, connection among people, mutual help, and equality among everyone? For a long time, each of them talks about what is good for people who use religion for fulfilling their own egoistic needs.

It turns out that through thousands of years we completely forgot about and moved away from the opinion of people who felt the presence of the force of bestowal. We moved away from the basis of religions set thousands years ago, which also talked about the force of bestowal.

In addition to that, our ego got so developed that we don’t even think about that, and all our systems are directed toward earning more to be independent from others and moving away from them like they don’t exist. Everyone is ready to fill the house with servants and household appliances and stay independent from everyone instead of being with his family and close, loving, and supportive people.

Thus, when we come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, it’s extremely difficult to start listening to the words of love and connection. After all, we’re used to the fact that that’s how little kids are taught. We egoistically want them to be better protected and unharmed, and hence teach them not to harm others. We tell them: “You have to love the other, be his friend.” We see that while a person is still young and dependent on others, it’s worthwhile for him to be good and loving, and then everyone loves him as well.

But as children grow, we tell them: “You have to win, be higher than everyone else! Show your strength and your power and you’ll be big!” We begin encouraging the ego inside of him instead of love. Our education is opposite to love.

So it turns out that we are led to Kabbalah by over-satiated and hence suffering egoism.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “Let There Be Light,” Item 32, Lesson 14
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Introduction to the Study of Talmud Eser Sefirot, Item 1, Lesson 1
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “Freedom from the Angel of Death,” Start with: “I have already brought you,” Lesson 4
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