Question: Before coming to the convention, we had many negative obstacles on our path. How should we accept and overcome them?

Answer: All the problems that arise along the way are not accidental; it is necessary to feel help in them. Under no circumstances should this postpone or annul your goal.

You need to re-evaluate the goal itself again and aim yourself even more sharply towards it. And then you pass and see that the last time, your intentions were imprecisely coordinated towards the goal: You forgot something, somehow weren’t yet focused on it, while now, thanks to the disturbances, you determined it accurately, compressed a little more compactly in your intention, and therefore you dive towards the goal.

So all the disturbances are to your advantage: They either stop you because you aren’t yet worthy to attain the goal, or conversely, they force you to compress so that you are able and worthy, and you proceed towards the goal.

We are inside a force field where there are no accidents, no exceptions, and no special treatments. This is how it works.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 4

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Question: Lately you have been directing the men not only to work in the group, but also to work with their wives. Is there a difference from the spiritual viewpoint between a man’s work with a man, a man with a woman, the male part with the female part, or my work with the external world?

Answer: In the meantime yes. All of them are on different levels and I exist in different relationships with them. Nevertheless, we begin from the corporeal, mutual relationships. We are still not disconnected from each other so that I would see only the soul in you. You are a woman. You constitute a part of some group. You have a name of your own, your problems, and your activities. This means that one has to take into account, all that surrounds you. It is also the same thing with the friends.

We exist in a certain framework; we can’t hover in the clouds and detach ourselves from the external sheath. Thus it imposes on us certain commitments. This outer sheath speaks about our special and exact things: man and woman. This is a very strict division in nature according to all the natural functions and we must take this into consideration.

Question: This is about the corporeal world. But from the viewpoint of spirituality, there is only reception and bestowal. Is there a difference in the relation to reception and bestowal? With whom do I participate in a mutual way: with a man, with a woman, or with the external world?

Answer: It depends on what level you are on. If you are already above the level of Hafetz Hesed, that is, bestowal for the sake of bestowal, above the attribute of Bina, then there’s no difference. And until that level, there is a difference.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 4

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We know that when we get inspiration by the study, the group, or by certain actions that we perform, meaning when we are influenced by the environment, we immediately change our values and according to this awakening are ready to advance in “faith above reason” and to work in bestowal and love.

When this awakening fades, we return to our ordinary values. The question is what can you do when you descend to the ordinary corporeal values? After all, you still remember how you were impressed previously by the upper values since you were under the influence of the environment and you were several levels higher than you are now. Why were you given this state?

You were not lowered so that you would simply try to return to the state you were in previously, but so that in the current lower state you can appreciate the upper values that impressed you before. You should want to live according to the values that were attained under the influence of the group even when the upper state disappears and does not illuminate on you anymore.

Although the illumination disappears from our corporeal recognition, you can renew it and keep the same upper values by your exertion, by spurring yourself. This is all our work.

This is called keeping the covenant. Although a person is not in the state of ascent he was before, he is still adhered to the same upper values.

It is as if you were raised to a certain level and then brought down again, and now you have to return to the same level by yourself. Then you are brought up again to an even higher level and brought down again and rise by yourself. Although the Light doesn’t illuminate on you anymore, you want to keep all the conditions of that level in “faith above reason.” You want to keep the same dedication for the group and the Creator, although you don’t get any support from them now. This is how you can advance.

This means that you are keeping the conditions of the covenant. Even if you signed this covenant when you were overflowing with evident feelings of love and were greatly impressed, now this attitude is not revealed, but you find the powers inside you to keep the covenant in the current conditions, just like it was before.

Thus a person advances. First he is given an example and the next time he has to perform by himself the same action he was shown. This is what happens time after time. The state a person attains by making efforts to find the powers to rise to the same values in “faith above reason” is called “a day” for him.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/12, Writings of Rabash

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On the part of the created beings, meaning all of us, there is only one action that we can perform: to aspire to unity. More or less, we understand the system in which we all exist and realize why we strive to act so.

We don’t unite for the sake of gaining or creating anything, nor do we build a team of people who will accomplish some earthly tasks as we are used to in this world. We unite to attract upon ourselves the upper Light that will truly unite us and manifest itself inside this interconnection.

The fact that we devote that much time to the exploration of various forms of behavior in the group can only be explained by our confusion. In fact, all that is required of us is a single action and nothing else.

The Light will also make a single action that will match our efforts. However, we have to make the utmost exertion. I should always imagine that I am at a certain level and want to rise to the next one. I need to apply effort that corresponds to the difference (∆) between the two levels.

This ladder is discrete. And that’s why my efforts are not enough. I need to be inspired and forced; I need to be obliged, teased, and pushed towards it.

With the help of our environment, we have a tremendous opportunity to generate negative forces that will push us ahead, “prick” us a little, cause some minor pain, and create troubles. On the other hand, they should trigger us and pull us forward by producing a good feeling in us and ascertaining that something huge and wonderful is awaiting us ahead.

These moves should be built on pain and jealousy, on the qualities that are inherent in our nature. I want to elicit these forces to work on me so that they shape me correctly and make negative forces join together behind me and push me forward by stimulating me from behind. A stimulus is a sharp stick with which donkeys are urged to go forward. Accordingly, I want those stimuli to urge my “donkey.”

Besides, I want to be pulled forward. I need my surroundings to permanently remind me of the beautiful goals that are set in front of me, about what can be reached in this life and in this world if we manage to rise above it into the sensation of the infinity of the next level.

So, I want to be pushed and pulled at the same time. If I am in the environment and can awaken myself in relation to it as described above and if the environment is also ready to act similarly in response, meaning that the environment is acting this way relative to me, relative to all others—everybody together relative to each and everyone, then we will be able to elicit sufficient internal tension that will be equal to the delta (∆), to the over-fall between two levels.

Let’s mark our current level a zero (0); the next level will be marked as one (1). Our current state is a preparation period to level one. It’s the hardest and the most unpleasant phase since we all are as blind kittens that feel or know nothing. We have to blindly follow what’s written in the books. We don’t even have to understand what’s written in them. This is how we advance since the correction really starts from zero.

The Light impacts us constantly, and as soon as we hit the threshold level, it starts changing us: It alters our ego into its opposite, into bestowal. Due to the power of bestowal, instead of being repulsed from each other, we begin contacting and uniting with each other, thus creating a system of interconnection.

As soon as we manage to create this kind of system at the very first level of our interconnection, the Light emerges within it and fills the space which was always present among us. The only difference is that previously we used to reject others, and now within this new space we try to make contact with others beyond our egos, and the space is being filled with the Light. This is what we call revelation of the Creator.
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From Lesson 1, Kharkov Congress, 8/17/2012

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Preparation to the Lesson

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Kabbalah for the Student “600,000 Souls,” (Starting with: “We learned that”, To: “And they said”), Lesson 2

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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt “Safra de Tzniyuta,” Lesson 5

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Volume 1, Part 3, Chapter 11, Item 1, Lesson 25

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Last Generation,” “Pragmatic Commune” (To: “The necessity”)

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Our awakening to the Creator usually starts when a certain grievance towards Him arises in us. Only rarely do we turn to the Creator with gratitude, and more often we do so with complaints and grievances.

Such grievances awaken in a person repeatedly. But if he nevertheless remains in a group and continues to study, drawing the Light to himself, then he begins to realize that all the problems, suffering, hardening of the heart, shame—all are situations that the Creator arranges for him in life, and the most unpleasant ones especially are designed to show him that everything comes from the Creator.

And secondly, he needs to understand that he shouldn’t ask for all these problems to be fixed since then he would be turning to the Creator from his egoism. But a person must turn to the Creator above all of these problems, agreeing with Him, rejoicing, and seeing in all of these actions, which evoke in him various unpleasant reactions, the Creator’s kindness and mercy that accompany him throughout his entire life. He needs to ask for correction of his attitude to the Creator.

He needs to try to correct himself above all of these unpleasant sensations, perceiving them as obstacles above which he can rise if he desires to perceive them as kind help in attaining the property of bestowal. And then, all of these unpleasant situations, pain, shame, and confusions will appear to him as the opposite, as help and mercy from the Creator who sends them so that a person would accept them as good, and above them will ask for his correction.

And in completing this stage, a person asks for the possibility to be ready for anything that comes from the Creator, blessing in advance for all the bad as for the good. This means to accept the Creator’s direct and indirect governance, as it is written: “Thou hast hemmed me in behind and before.”

So our work consists not in asking the unpleasant sensations, situations, influences, and disturbances to be removed and solved. Instead, we need to be prepared to see the Creator’s hand in all of these actions, especially sent so that above them, we would build our correct attitude and form vessels of bestowal. And do it to such an extent that these problems and disturbances will not only stop bothering us, but we will see in them a special mercy and benevolence.

Then we will not ask the Creator to solve our problems, and instead we will correct our properties ourselves, because we will see the benefit of these problems. And instead of all kinds of evil, we will see only good in the same places.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/23/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: There is group work and there is dissemination. What should be the internal clarification so that there will be no diversion to one side or another, so that there will be a harmonious integration inside me?

Answer: A harmonious integration is when you feel that nothing matters, that the external world, the group, the Creator, and you are all the same. Only then will there be a harmonious integration, at the end of correction. In the meantime, you will always have the problem of what to deal with. We have to judge according to the circumstances.

Of course, the main thing is the group and the state it is in, since if I don’t have that I have nothing to disseminate with and nothing to turn to the Creator with. I cannot turn to Him by myself.

So the group and its connection are primary. Then comes the attitude, that is, I am with the group as a collective revelation, the clarification of the Creator as the One who creates, corrects, and fills us.

Then, when you already begin to perceive this model, you can turn to the world, since it is better to turn to the Creator when you tie it to the whole world.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/18/12, Lesson 4

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Throughout the seminar, each group, each circle, must find a question that he would like to ask. Discuss it among yourselves, come to the state when this is really a very important question for you, the most important one, which you all agree to clarify from the bottom of your heart, and that is exactly the question you want to ask.

Do not yield to your friends now, like we usually do it, saying: “They are great, they are big, they know better; I bow before what I hear from them.” Here, it is the opposite: “No, I believe that my opinion is more important.” I want to captivate them with my opinion instead of our common work. So in no way can there be any concessions here, but on the contrary, the realization of the brightest prayer, its peak: what we should really ask! And it should be of the feelings and of the mind. It must combine everything that we really need in it.

“Chew it thoroughly,” analyze what you will ask for. Do as in a fairy tale: You are given one wish, once you will say it, it will be implemented!

Afterward, we will try to hear and possibly unite all of these desires. We will write them out, connect them all together, try to find what is the most common among them, and that will actually already be a collective prayer.

Most importantly, express yourself concisely, coherently, clearly, so that it will just break the heart!

First of all, we need to warm the hearts up so that they all become soft, melt, and unite into one. Then it will be possible to come to the collective agreement about what is important for us.
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From the Kharkov Convention “Uniting to Ascend” 8/17/12, Workshop 3

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Baal HaSulam, Letter #32: In order for a prayer to be complete, a person must come to feel that closeness to the Creator is his lawful right and necessity, as if for an organ that is separated from the body. Because then he will be able to pour out the indignation of his heart before the Creator.

But at the same time, he must praise and thank the Creator for the closeness allowed to him, as if it is a high favor that he receives undeservedly. Because then, he will be able to feel a true gratitude to the Creator who chose him to serve Him out of all the people who stand before Him.

This is big and difficult work, composed of two such opposites that must always be combined in our heart. The second condition, which requires one to feel oneself as insignificant and distant from the Creator, while the Creator’s help as undeserved mercy, is much more difficult than the first. In most cases, a person stumbles precisely on this.

A person, who rises above the still, vegetative, and animate levels is someone who includes two forces in himself: reception and bestowal. These two forces he needs to multiply to the full measure determined in the thought of creation, to Malchut of the World of Infinity. Therefore, he must constantly work on increasing in himself the forces of reception and bestowal.

Without the force of reception, he won’t be able to reveal the Creator, while without the force of bestowal, he won’t be able to come closer to Him, that is, to adhere to Him. Both of these forces need to intertwine and support each other, and a screen binds them together in the middle line.

Work with these two forces is called prayer and gratitude. In prayer, a person must feel close to the Creator, asking and penetrating straight into the Creator’s heart. He needs to imagine himself inside the Creator, because one normally makes requests of someone who is close to him.

However, in gratitude, a person needs to feel himself as low and small, and the Creator as high and distant. Only then a person can be truly grateful for the fact that the Creator chose him specifically.

It turns out that you need to feel the Creator sometimes close, and sometimes distant, working with both of these directions in full force. And it is a lot more difficult to work on the second condition.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/21/2012

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