Rabash, “What to Look for in the Assembly of Friends”: It is the same with love of friends. It is a great effort when one should judge the friends to a scale of merit, and not everyone is ready for it.

Sometimes, it is even worse. At times, a person sees that his friend is disrespectful toward him. Even worse, he heard a slanderous rumor, meaning he heard from a friend that that friend, who is called so and so, said about him things that are not nice for friends to say about each other. Now he has to subdue himself and judge him to a scale of merit. This, indeed, is a great effort… However, if that person slanders him, where will his friend muster the strength to love him? He knows for certain that he hates him, or he would not be slandering him, so what is the point in subduing himself and judging him to a scale of merit?

The answer is that love of friends that is built on the basis of love of others, by which they can achieve the love of the Creator, is the opposite of what is normally considered love of friends. In other words, love of others does not mean that the friends will love me. Rather, it is I who must love the friends. For this reason, it makes no difference if the friend is slandering him and must certainly hate him. Instead, a person who wishes to acquire love of others, that person needs the correction of loving the other.

Therefore, when a person makes the effort and judges him to a scale of merit, it is a Segula [remedy/power/virtue], whereby the toil that a person makes, which is called “an awakening from below,” he is given strength from above to be able to love all the friends without exception.

This is a difficult question. The attitude of an individual toward society has different aspects. First, I must see the group in a perfect state at the end of correction and understand that “He who faults another does so through his own flaws.” So, I must see the friends as perfect, and, if I notice any flaws, it is a sign of my uncorrected attributes. I must constantly try to judge the friends to the scale of merit, and this shows me how I should correct myself and ask for the force of correction.

On the other hand, I must check what I can add to the society so that it will increase its influence on me—that it will lift my spirit, strengthen me, and make me feel secure. In order to do that, I need a critical perspective of the group so that I can see how it can be improved and where its wholeness is lacking. I constantly aspire to lift it, and, so, I must see it as imperfect at the moment so that I will have something to work on. I invest powers in the group so that it will grow strong and rise.

However, if you don’t refer to the attitude of an individual toward the society, but to the state of the society itself and its influence on all the friends, then the society must be strong enough to make everyone feel secure and keep each member on a certain height, to guide him and keep his spirit high so that he will not be able to fall. This is why we must see the true state of the society since we build it by ourselves, and we cannot settle for the idea that it is already in the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) in a perfectly corrected state.

We must see how we can lift the society so that it will lift us. In order to do that, I must exit myself, be incorporated in the society, and make sure that the poison of slander will not poison it, but that only the greatness of the goal and love for all, without exception, will reside in it. Then, this feeling and this support will pass on to each of the friends and obligate them to love each other in the same way.

There are different nuances according to the type of society, and whether it is a society of beginners or of more advanced students, a society of women, of men, or a mixed society. In each case, there are special relationships, but the two basic conditions are a person’s attitude toward a society which is perfect and the attitude toward a society that needs to be lifted in order to radiate this perfection back on us. As always, there are two, opposite poles to everything.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13

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European Convention Day Three, Lesson 6

European Convention Day Three, Workshop 4

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Question: We know that the difference between the path of suffering and the short path is that during the acceleration I am not only pushed from behind but am also pulled forward by myself…

Answer: That’s the main idea, to be pulled forward. A little push from behind is enough to wake you to take more work upon yourself. It says that the Creator puts a person’s hand on the good fate, which means that He directs a person. Then you do the work.

Question: But in order to be drawn forward I must first hold on to something. After all, I will not climb up in the air. What can I hold to up there above my head in order to be drawn upward?

Answer: It’s hard to say. Every person has an “angel” that guides him. It’s a special force, aimed at connection, at participating in the life of the general system. On the whole, a person advances not knowing where and why, by urges that he doesn’t understand.

These are not urges of the “steamroller of evolution” that come from behind, but rather “signals from the future,” that pull me somewhere, saying something, and on the whole creating different opportunities. Suddenly I see and hear something, come across someone, find a book…this is how my “angel” operates.

So in the meantime there is no clear cut answer to your question. Later you will see that these are all the forces of our evolution about which we study in The Study of the Ten Sefirot. Soon, we will approach them and will start speaking the language of this book…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: We want to change our intention. Does that mean that we change our thoughts?

Answer: You differentiate the thought from the desire, but in spirituality it’s the opposite, we connect the two. It’s because the thought is actually a result of the desire. The action stems from the desire and the intention that is dressed in the desire is called a thought. In this world the mind operates the feelings, the brain influences the heart, but they are separate. In spirituality a desire is the heart and an intention is the mind and they are mutually connected.

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Slander is disorder, detachment of connection, and communication between humans on the speaking level, but what happens with a person is projected to all other forms of nature that are found below him. Therefore, the behavior of the entire collective system—including the upper worlds with all that is in them and our world with all of its levels below the speaking: the animate, vegetative, and still—depends only upon the only free choice that exists in all of reality. Everything depends upon the only free choice: the correct connection between the parts on that level that can be established according to the will of the creatures themselves.

This connection cannot be established through elementary particles or molecules, not through animals that are lower than us, and not through angels who are higher than us, which means not through higher forces. The connection is established only on our level, the human level; only this establishes the entire hierarchy of forces and forms. Only human beings have free choice, and the choice belongs and is related only to how to establish the correct relationships between them instead of the first, naturally-given relationship—natural hatred and egoistic rejection—rather, the corrected relationship called, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In this way, we reach the perfected functioning of all parts of creation as one integral system.

The entire Torah speaks only about the correction of the relationships between humans since by means of this, the entire reality returns to the corrected state. Other than this, there is no need to correct anything.

First, humanity needs to develop to the level where it can understand that it is broken. Then, it begins to feel that there is no choice and that it is necessary to do something with itself in order to correct the lack of coordination between its separate parts. Otherwise, it simply will disappear from the face of the earth, and then the method of correction is discovered.

Now we are in such a time where human desire and its characteristics have been changed and developed throughout evolution to the degree that we already have begun to feel that we are not able to fix the world, that is, to build the right relationship between us, and, on the other hand, we simply must do this otherwise there will be no future for us. And therefore, the method of correction has been revealed to arrange the right connection between humans so that all of humanity will be found in accord with nature, in harmony.

In all of the vastness of nature, only humans have inserted a defect into the wondrous collective harmony and integral unity of all the parts where each supports the others and feels itself as a component of a complete analog system that works with complete mutuality. Today we have reached a development that finally we have begun to realize that we have no way out and that we must become aware of the system of correction. Otherwise, we will have no chance of continuing human history; our state is very dangerous.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, Writings of Rabash

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There is a kind of “virtual printer” inside me that prints the picture of my world. In other words, there is a program inside me that operates me and draws the world for me. It actually does not exist. Everything is internal, in my feelings, but the program gives them an effect of something that is external.

Question: What happens if the friends decide to focus on thoughts about creating one reality and mutual connection?

Answer: The program also is shows me the group in which I work. It just seems to me that I am among other people and that we make decisions together. The inner attributes project certain images, shadows in different forms, but they actually do not exist.

In the same way, our collective decision and my inner resistance to it are all determined by the program. There is only one way to correct it: If I know about it and about the reality that is projected by it, and I want to unite everything into one, to connect. In that case, I rise to the level of the programmer and understand why he has arranged all that for me.

On the one hand, I get to know the program, and, on the other hand, I see which pictures it draws in my imagination. So, when I correct my imagination through using it, I crosscheck them and unite them into one. Thus, I go through different corruptions and corrections, and eventually I discover the mind of the programmer, the plan of creation. This is the desired effect of the process—to be incorporated in the purpose of creation.

Question: Does this mean that the programmer wants us to be constantly in two worlds, the imaginary one and the real one?

Answer: It is essential that we discover the goal of creation by ourselves. What for? So we treat it with respect.

After all, the ego pulls me downward, offers me sleep and distracts me. If I want to wake myself up, there is only one way to do that: to use this program, the environment, and everything that is related to it, but only if, at the same time, I respect the programmer. This is called bringing Him contentment in Kabbalah.

Question: So, how should I integrate these two systems?

Answer: You simply should be together with the friends. Now, they seem like strangers that are external to me. Later, I will feel that, despite this picture, they are inside me. They are mine, my beloved, mutually connected and incorporated in one. Then, in the connection between them, I will begin to reveal the source, the Creator. All this will be like one whole.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How do we move into high gear before the convention in Europe?

Answer: We simply need to make a decision. The two weeks of one big convention in which we want to come out of Egypt and to receive the Torah at the gathering at Mount Sinai have started.

If we want to do that, we have to see ourselves as one family, as one man in one heart. It is a precondition, and if we yearn for it, we will receive the “Torah” from Above, the Light that Reforms.

It doesn’t mean that we are already corrected but that we begin the correction then. So this isn’t some great leap upwards, but only the first step along the way. I am not exaggerating the importance of our convention and am not speaking about something unrealistic. I am very serious, with a small effort based on our understanding of what we are headed towards, we will receive the “Torah,” which means the mechanism, the tool, by which we will be able to summon the Light that Reforms time after time.

It is like a regulator, a tap, which you open and get powers. The more you open it, the more powers you receive. So how can we open it? By connecting. The more we tighten our lines, the stronger will be the flow of the Light. We learn how to come together, to connect to one another, and what it’s like to unite, and each time, the upper Light influences us in different ways. Gradually, we begin to feel how the upper Light fills us, we accept its importance, its greatness, and the process already takes on a different form…

The main thing is to pass the current point of the shattering. In it we discover our readiness for connection, and in response to that we receive the Light. It is because the Light is only meant for connection. So the only thing we have to do is to unite into one mechanism, into a vessel for the Lights of NRNHY.

Question: What does it mean to “make a decision?”

Answer: We don’t think about anything else; we simply don’t think about anything else, think only about connection.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/18/13, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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In the News (from Business Insider): “Americans weren’t always addicted to buying things. … People used to save money for things they actually needed.

“But in the age of plenty that followed World War I, corporations countered the threat of overproduction with a manipulative psychological strategy.

“We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture,” wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers. “People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

“This conspiracy, enabled by new sophistication in advertising and supported by the government, was shockingly effective….

“A new kind of advertising was key to this possible, and the pioneer in this field was Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who showed corporations how to make people want things they didn’t need by linking mass-produced goods to unconscious desires….

“Bernays shattered the taboo against women smoking by persuading a group of debutantes to light up at a parade — an event he leaked to the media ahead of time with the phrase ‘Torches Of Freedom’ — thereby linking smoking with challenging male authority.

“In 1927 an American journalist wrote: ‘A change has come over our democracy, it is called consumptionism. The American citizens first importance to his country is now no longer that of citizen, but that of consumer.’

“Elected in 1928, President Herbert Hoover was the first politician to embrace the central role of consumerism.”

My Comment: But time develops a desire in people, and they are no longer satisfied with shopping. There is a desire, but there is no fulfillment because desires became virtual, aimed at the meaning of life, the feeling of happiness. In addition, an understanding has come that fulfillment of the material desires kills the desire itself, and thus the feeling of enjoyment and happiness disappears because pleasure is felt only when the desire and fulfillment meet, and fulfillment reduces the feeling of happiness.

It turns out that happiness is unattainable if we fulfill the desire, and how is it possible to satisfy it so it is not satisfied, to always have desire and not receive?

There is a science of receiving—the science of Kabbalah (to receive in Hebrew), which teaches us how to achieve eternal and infinite happiness! It is possible if we break the link between desire and fulfillment, if I love someone by fulfilling him, I enjoy. That is why love (not for the body, but for a human being) is a means of achieving happiness. (See the Talk on the Economics of Happiness, 3/1/13)
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Question: In one of the weekly Torah portions, it speaks mainly about Mount Sinai and the commandments, but it is called by the name of the hero “Yitro – Jethro.” Why? It speaks about him only in the beginning and this is not the main thing in it.

Answer: This only seems that way. We don’t know what is important in the Torah and what is not. It reveals everything in a contingent form like this so that only a person who is occupied with the work in order to enter into the spiritual world begins to understand what is actually being said in this instruction book. Therefore, there are four levels of understanding of the Torah: simple, literary, allegorical, and truth.

Jethro is a great system of the spiritual world that essentially connects the characteristic of bestowal and the characteristic of reception, and, specifically owing to that, a person can begin to work with his egoistical desires in the right form.

The characteristic Israel is the characteristic of bestowal abstracted from our world and not connected to the ego. Therefore, they speak about the Jews almost as if they were aliens: They have something unique that makes them stand out from the general masses. There exists such a suspicious look at them from the side of the rest of the nations—and this is truly so.

We see this regarding the relationship of the Jews to the world in regard to life and not in regard to the superficial egoistical relationship that is found on the surface, but rather if we dig deeper into them. In spite of all this, there is some kind of different relationship, different knowledge, different characteristics, different behavior, and caution, not from fear, but rather from an understanding that the world is not so simple, which is to say, from a characteristic of a unique relationship seen in them in regard to the world, in regard to fate, in regard to history, and in regard to some kind of external system.

In our world, this is emanated into all kinds of ordinary characteristics, However, derived from this, in these people from the beginning, there was rooted a spiritual source, a spark that is called the point in the heart, and, therefore, they are dual, and not just egoistical, for, within their ego, the point in the heart is also found.

This point can become prominent and can drag the ego after it, and it also can be the opposite when the ego drags the point in the heart after it. People of the first type embodied that Israel, that nation, which existed 2000 years ago from the days of Babylon until the destruction of the Second Temple. They lived, then, specifically with this point in the heart; it led them forward. They corrected their ego according to the instruction of the Torah.

And, after that, came the exile, a state in which the point in the heart was found within the ego and obeyed it, and, so, the ego dragged it. However, thanks to this point in the heart, the ego profited. Therefore we see that the Jews in our world are more egoistic, more successful, more agile, and so forth, which is to say, they are immersed in the ego more than all the rest of the nations.

Those characteristics that were given to them for the needs of ascent were used in them to go deeper into the ego. They understood how it was possible to use the ego in order to fulfill it, but this was a necessary mixture of the characteristics of reception and bestowal, and Jethro is the system that helps to direct the ego in the right way for gradual work on itself with the help of the point in the heart.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 3/11/13

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