Question: As it happened that during the last congress in the North, our group divided into two parts: The first one, 10 people, isolated themselves from the world on the first floor of the center and completely simulated the conditions of the friends at the convention in Israel; the second one, 20-30 people who due to various reasons could attend but only participate part of the time, were in another room.

I was among the isolated 10, and I could not concentrate on anything but one thought: “How could it happen that we divided into two parts?” But I could not pluck up the courage to raise this issue with the other 9 people. This question haunts me; what should I do? Could I raise it for discussion or would it be against the unity of the group, even in this decision to be divided into two parts during the convention? I just think that the spiritual committee should insist that the group stays together no matter under what conditions.

Answer: Contradictions exist until the final correction everywhere and especially in Kabbalah, but in spirituality, opposite things are united in a common intention; they co-exist although they are separated by the law of equivalence of form. So, we need to get used to the fact that we can be different, but together; moreover, we should not strive to put everyone and everything at the same level. Equal does not mean the same, but equal in the intention and at different levels.

We are all different and no one forces us to be the same, but just to aspire for the same goal. Also, everyone strives for the goal in various ways. We are different, like the cells of one body; in our intention to the common Creator, the Creator unites us.

Stay as an example to follow, and those who cannot, due to objective reasons, are not worse than you, but will be in the other sub-group at the congress; similarly, the body has organs that are different in their importance organs, but they belong to one body.

The equality of friends does not mean sameness!

Ask, we will find out.
[82417]

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In the News (from The Slatest): “Being spanked, slapped, pushed, or hit as a child, even when these punishments are not a part of full-scale maltreatment, are linked to an increased risk of mental illness in adulthood in a new study published in Pediatrics. …

“Lead author Tracie Afifi recommends that physical punishment not be used on children of any age, and that positive parenting strategies be employed instead. Spanking, and other forms of physical punishment on children, is illegal in 32 countries, not including the United States. The American Academy of Pediatrics, however, officially discourages it. …

“Close to 80 percent of American preschool children are spanked, according to a 2010 University of North Carolina study.”

My Comment: There is no other method of education, except an example, especially when it comes not from adults, but from peers. The environment is always the only effective and positive means of upbringing. Nothing can replace a good example of friends.
[82411]

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Question: Is it necessary to have intensive studies for a long period of time so that the majority of people could approach the integral level?

Answer: We should not wait until they reach it. We don’t have time.

We see that the so-called “progressive” societies of the world are in a very critical state. Since the world is interconnected, they will naturally influence the entire world with their undesirable extreme fallout; nothing good will come from that.

Here we cannot take a statistically average segment. We should define it according to the most extreme states where the wealth, power, force, and weapons exist because it is the highest level and defines the level of human development.

Today we cannot say, “Humanity has Wall Street and at the same time it has an African village, and their average is modern humanity.” No!

Since Wall Street is working for the entire world, we should take it into account. The African village will feel its influence in any case. If Wall Street disappears, the African village will die from starvation or it will be reduced to ashes if Wall Street wishes so.
[82246]
From a “Talk on Integral Education” #33, 5/25/12

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We are the result of the breaking. If we want to approach the Light, the spiritual life, to resemble the Creator, then it is only possible through unity. Thus we are taken through many situations through which we need to learn that without the unity, we won’t find the strength, the efforts, the thoughts, or the correct desires.

Many times in his life, man says that it is enough, and decides that from that day forward he will take himself seriously and devote each moment to spiritual development, to take advantage of all the possible means, to stop wasting his life and degrading the opportunities that we are given from above.

But already the next moment, he forgets these thoughts. He sees, that if obstacles come, he isn’t able to stand against them. This is done on purpose in order to teach him that if he wants to adhere to the path and make the correct decision each time, he must receive the force from the environment.

He can receive this force if he considers the surroundings as greater than himself. If he has one friend that he considers as one level above him, then it’s like one facing zero. This means “10.” If he has several friends, then this number grows accordingly.

As much as he is able to annul himself towards the others, then he will see them as greater than himself, and he can receive from them greater impressions, meaning the force for prayer, unity, and all the spiritual work.

After all, he is already actually annulling himself before them, and thus the spiritual force comes to him. But in the meantime, this spiritual force, the self-annulment and the same field in which he acts, together with the friends, are egoistic, “Lo Lishma” (Not for her Name). In any case, these are correct actions, and that is why they work.

We shouldn’t degrade them, after all, all of these small amounts accumulate into one great light, his efforts accumulate in order to raise his friends higher and higher, and that is the goal of creation that he wants to attain with their help.
[82215]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/12, Writings of Rabash

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We are all “floating” in the informational field. It is above time, space, and movement. It is constant. But we are not sensing this field because we have different properties. However, if we unite, we become, to the extent of our degree of interconnection, similar to this field; we become unified as it is and begin to pick up its information.

When everyone exists in the state of separation without uniting with others, then he senses in this informational field only a small informational part that is sensed by everyone as “our world” isolated from this informational field and can be sensed only in this person, in his individual egoistic part.

As soon as we unite, the minimum of many is two (“Miut Ha-Rabim—Shnayim”), then we right away start to correspond to this informational field and begin to sense it at the minimal level called, let’s say, “Nefesh de Nefesh.” And so forth, meaning that according to the law of similarity, we sense this field, the Creator, to the degree of our connection. By this we are making a sense organ out of ourselves.
[82297]

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Question: I’ve been working with psychotherapy and psychology for twenty years and I have a lot of different experiences and so on. In transitioning to the method of integral education, I see all the pluses that you’re talking about. Moreover, we have applied them in practice and they are quite obvious.

But since this is the next qualitatively new degree, then essentially, my entire twenty-year experience is not needed. It turns out that I have to give it up, but I cannot do it, it’s very hard for me to do.

Answer: Why do you think that we don’t need your experience?

After all, it wasn’t in vain that humanity developed for hundreds of millions of years to reach the present state. Obviously, it couldn’t have come to it in one thrust.

I also lived my entire life going through all kinds of states, pursuing disciplines completely remote from this method, searched, suffered, developed, and worked in various fields. I don’t know the full program: Why did I come to it through exactly such a path and didn’t do it 30-40 years ago like my current young students? I don’t envy them, because in everything there is a cause-and-effect basis for each of us. But to talk about the fact that the past could have been different, I think that for a psychologist this is not suitable.

Response: Experience, that’s all great. But it has a reverse side, a trap, in that a person clings on to this experience. It would seem that you’ve already passed these states and the next step is in front of you, and it is beautiful. But you’re standing at the threshold and shuffling your feet, because it’s scary to take this step.

Answer: I agree with you, and I see it in many people.

What can we say then about those who are only now starting out and are pursuing something very distant?! They spent their life on absolutely egoistic, murky, lowly fulfillments… We have to understand that this is how we were created, that only consistent cause-and-effect development is what leads us to realize the need for the next phase of development, and for each it is his or her own.
[82197]
From a “Talk On Integral Upbringing” 5/25/12

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam “Article 14,” (To: “He must know that this issue”) 

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “Beresheet Bet (Genesis 2),” Lesson 136

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 2, “Histaklut Pnimit,” Item 96, Lesson 26

“Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 31, Lesson 12

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Each of us contains 613 different desires, relating to our connection with one another, which we have to correct. First of all, I have to see that they are all egoistic and that I want to use the neighbor and the Creator.

This direction, “Israel, Torah, and the Creator,” meaning from love for the creatures to love for the Creator, first works in the opposite form: for the sake of using the Creator and the creatures for one’s own benefit. First we have to discern precisely this fact, and it becomes revealed on the condition that both the creatures and the Creator are used correctly.

At the first stage, wishing to achieve the general connection with the entire universe, through the creatures to the Creator, we discover our transgressions and mistakes, and that is how we reveal the evil inclination. This does not happen all at once. As one advances, a small part of egoism is continually revealed. We demand its correction, and in the Light of correction we reveal a greater part of egoism, and then again ask for it to be corrected.

Light comes from the Creator through the group, illuminating and correcting the evil that we discover, and as a result we discover new, stronger, harsher waves of egoism within us. That is how we advance from small mistakes to more serious ones, and then from small transgressions to bigger ones, gradually revealing and correcting ourselves.

But we always aspire to love, unification, the unity of Israel, Torah, and the Creator into one whole. We wish for the Creator to become holy, “separate,” special, meaning for the quality of bestowal to always be the greatest value for us. That is how progress occurs.

And the most important aspect of this work is to understand that all corrections are concentrated outside of a person. His spiritual advancement occurs outside of him. And outside of him there is only the Shechina and the Creator that fills it.

A person imagines that there is an entire world around him: still, vegetative, animate, and human, but all of that is just his illusion, his imagination. In reality, none of this exists. When a person begins to reveal the true reality, he discovers that all of it is devoid of the spirit of life, and it is enlivened only by the upper force of the Creator, who is standing behind all of these images and shadows. By themselves they are just garments, wrappers, not having inner fulfillment.

Let us hope that we will reveal this truth quickly and will begin truly working with the Creator through these garments.
[82496]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/9/12, Writings of Rabash

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If a person understands the nature of his work, he begins to treat his environment differently because he sees that he has no desire of his own and everything comes from the Creator, and that is why it does not allow him to be considered a creature.

He will be called a creature when he turns to the environment and receives the desire from it. Then these desires will be written on his account.

That is, he needs to bow his head and understand that only the desires that he receives from the environment are called Shechina, the place for the revelation of the Creator, who is called Shochen (Dweller). That is why inclusion in the group is absolutely obligatory for spiritual advancement.

It is said that it is necessary to love friends: “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” After all, in this connection between everyone, which is called love, a person reveals the spiritual world, the Creator.

In fact, I don’t choose friends. My choice comes later. In the beginning, the Creator brings me to a group, and I don’t have any freedom here. My choice starts later when I really connect with them and must answer the question: Why do I need it and what I want to receive from them?

Thus, I advance, each time choosing friends because I have to see all of them as great, despite the fact that they appear to me more and more insignificant and empty. This means that I choose them because now I choose precisely these friends whom the Creator gave me for spiritual advancement.

In this way, I move forward and build on my own, a new desire. This very desire that I receive from the environment and in which I want to become similar to the Creator, to reveal the force of bestowal, is called a human being.

Everyone is obliged to show his love for the group because we must support each other, which is called mutual guarantee. Everyone becomes a guarantor for the rest that they all will have enough strength to reveal the force of bestowal and achieve similarity with the Creator. That is why, I am responsible for everyone, I signed their guarantee. Their spirituality is in my hands, as well as my spirituality is in their hands.

And if one of us drills a hole in the common boat, then we will all drown in our egoism, our self-serving intentions, and will not be able to reveal the Creator.

That is why, the further we advance towards revealing the Creator, the more stringent and demanding the conditions will become. We need to understand that we are facing the laws of nature of the Light and desire, and there can be no compromises and concessions. Everything is done according to the laws of the relationship between these two forces.
[82278]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/12, Writings of Rabash

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