Rabash, “What is the Preparation for the Receiving of the Torah”: As for the Lord, it says “and the Lord descended upon Mt. Sinai, at the top of the mountain.” And as for the people, it says “and they gathered at the bottom of the mountain.” And we should understand what a “mountain” means. A “mountain” (Har) originates from the word “doubts” (Hirurim), which is a person’s mind.

If we accept this message in our mind, it means that the Creator is at the top of the mountain, meaning that He operates that way and we feel and agree that we have no choice and that we must receive the Torah. It’s because after we understand that the evil inclination prepares us for burial, we must receive the Torah, to be saved from death, from this doomed life.

So where is our free will if we are naturally forced to receive the Torah? The evil inclination itself, which is our desire to enjoy this life, leaves us to this choice. But is this called receiving?

So when we gather at the foot of the mountain and discover our evil inclination, and opposite to it we reveal the Torah, it’s a start. We clearly understand that we begin to live under these conditions. Now as the evil inclination is revealed in every step we make, we have to decide: Why has it been revealed, why do I need it, and how can it be corrected by using the evil inclination and the Torah that was given for its correction correctly? Can we ascend to the Creator’s level, to the top of the mountain?

This is the preparation for the receiving of the Torah, but it’s only the preparation and not its fulfillment yet. Here we still act out of necessity: There is such a revelation that doesn’t leave us much choice. We see that we have an evil inclination and a means to correct it, the Torah, and if we refuse to accept it, this will be our burial place. Otherwise we have no chance of being saved from this life, which is worse than death, and so of course, a person accepts the condition he is given.

Free will appears later with every step a person makes along the way, when we begin to fulfill the Torah during the forty years in the desert. All these years of wandering are already the real levels of the receiving of the Torah, by which we rise higher and higher, until we reach the top of the mountain.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/13

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Question: In homeopathy, there is a therapeutic component that is very hard to understand since we haven’t yet reached a state at which we can feel it. However, it can be developed in the course of integral studies and seminars where people get closer to each other and acquire similar tendencies in their desires.

Answer: It was always very popular in all countries and cultures. Today, there are countless people who light candles, perform various various actions, and believe in what they do. I am not talking about charlatans who simply make money on these beliefs; rather, I mean people who sense these things, believe in them, and practice them.

Several years ago, there was a huge fair of alternative therapeutic methodologies in Israel where a variety of stones, pendants, amulets, and candles that have particular scents were demonstrated… Anything you want!

It’s amazing what our civilization has managed to invent! People truly believe in it. But this is not the advertisement of some clinics or treatment centers. People were always attracted to these kinds of things. However, only a group that correctly interacts internally and manages to elevate above its own egoism, only a group that connects counter to its natural reciprocal repulsion, only such a group can be turned into a motivating and serious detector, into a research tool with the help of which we are able to really locate authentic causes of events and particular vibrations and sensations.

Question: What will the unified goal of such a group be?

Answer: The goal is to make others healthier, nothing but that. Such a group is in balance with nature, whereas the rest of the humankind stays imbalanced, thus ruining the general equilibrium. As a result, such a group would feel a tremendous desire to make others healthier.

Everybody will eventually realize that if they don’t “mend” the health of the entire humanity or if they fail to influence others in a positive way, they won’t be healthy themselves since we all are parts of one system. We feel these things at all levels; all of humanity is interconnected. So, a misfortunate event that happens in one place immediately travels to other areas. Until the entire system is corrected, nobody will be able to recover from illnesses.
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From KabTV’s “Medicine of the Future,” 4/7/2013

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Question: There are four fundamental interactions known in physics: strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational. Is it possible to say that these four interactions are the individual expressions of the integral force (interaction)?

Answer: Yes, at the level of inanimate matter these are expressions of the integral force, which summarizes them at the inanimate level. It’s Keter (Malchut) with regard to the rest of the Sefirot.

Question: You are talking about the four levels: matter, energy, information, and interaction (in the spiritual form, meaning in the form of mutual bestowal, love). At what level does the integral force act?

Answer: The integral force, the Creator, is clothed in your single (summarized) integral desire. You built it from your individual egoistic desires by annulling your individual egoistic desires through the aspiration to the mutual guarantee in order to attain the revelation of the Creator in it.
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Question: If a person has a health problem and goes to the doctor, he is given a prescription for a certain medicine and, then for another, then another, and so on. The principle of integrality is based on the fact that illness is the body’s wise, natural response to a person’s wrong doings; if a person changes, he will not have to depend on medication. This principle was used by ancient Chinese medicine that cared about the balance of a person’s body, between a person and nature, between him and other people, and between a person and himself. So how can we come to balance between a person and nature?

Answer: First, people must be taught the principles of integral education. They should know what man, nature, and the balance between man and nature are, what a society is, what the balance between a person and his social environment that surrounds him is, and about the balance with the society, with the family, and with himself.

All this is integral education, and it includes great knowledge. It is enough, however, to teach a person the basis for understanding these categories without going into great depth, so that he will understand what he should do.

After that, we should conduct workshops and training courses in which people will learn what balance with the environment really is. This balance is built on the simple principle of communicating vessels (connected vessels)—in every society, there is mutual penetration when people connect—so, if in one area there is excess temperature, pressure, or other parameters, they penetrate the places where there is a lack of it, according to size, volume, force, and intensity. These processes of mutual penetration take place until absolute balance in every area of society is achieved.

This happens on all levels of nature: mental, psychological, physical, intellectual, and others.

So, all our training is based on the notion of enabling people to come in contact with the world around them in this manner, but first, not with the still matter, the vegetative, and the animate, but with other people.

If a person enters the level of the right balance between himself and others like him, then it naturally automatically balances him individually and in his relationship with his environment. It is because a person’s communication with others is the best and most efficient means for self-correction, for self-change, for self-control with regard to others, and so forth.

Thus, we get the  most accurate picture and the options one has in order to bestow most efficiently on others. So, all our integral education programs are based on mutual cooperation between people and not on a person’s cooperation with nature or with himself in front of the mirror as some kind of inner psychoanalysis. It is attained only between people.
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From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Concerning Love of Friends“

The Book of Zohar – Introduction

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee“

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Question: At this time, the entire healthcare system in many countries is being transferred to government rails and pretty much reminds one of a conveyor belt. Physicians strive to see as many patients as possible and spend as little time with them as they can. In order to get additional attention from their doctors, patients have to pay extra money.

Throughout the entire era of medical field development, doctors have never been rich. They were famous, knowledgeable, but never wealthy. In accordance with the advancement of desires, the aspiration to be rich comes first. After that, there comes a desire to be respected and famous, whereas an aspiration to become knowledgeable follows all of them. In medicine, it works the other way around. Why has our medical system fallen so low? Why does it value money before respect, knowledge, and even before the desire to help others?

Answer: This phenomenon is going on not only in the field of medicine, but in all spheres of human activities. People (as opposed to inanimate, animate, and vegetative matter) constantly grow due to their egoism, the basis of human nature. Our desires become more egoistic; they increasingly control us, thus detaching us from each other.

At some point, we lived in big families, but now we reject having even a small family. Everybody wants to live separately nowadays; the number of divorces increases, people don’t want to marry, have children, etc. Our egoism has grown to a level where it separates us much more strongly than before and instead of elevating our desire to obtain knowledge, attain, and achieve, it brings money forward and makes our lives very pragmatic. The entire world depends on money; everything is subject to money. Money is power.

Previously, respect, glory, and power were not contingent upon money. Honor was above everything. During the last one hundred years, our egoism grew to the extent that we can see nothing except dollar signs. All spheres of human activity such as science, arts, or any kind of creativity that continue to attract many people previously were considered noble; things like poetry or scientific research made many artists and scientists sacrifice their lives. Nobody considers them worthy any more.

Today, things like arts and science are fully controlled and completely suppressed by money. Artists and scientists simply have to comply with this level. Sometimes they still experience self-sacrificing tendencies, but they have to suppress them right away. Artists and scientists are kept in narrow frames because they understand that their success directly depends on their sponsors’ support and on the size of their bank account.

Nowadays, spheres of life that are extremely dear to us directly depend on money because prevailing financial systems buy them out, thus taking them under their direct governance. All of the above also applies to mass media that completely depends on those who pay them.

Even education in schools doesn’t get due attention because its goal is to promote a herd instinct in students and suppress their individuality so that they don’t cultivate a benevolent, non-financial, unselfish attitude. By doing so, it makes it very easy to determine how much one is worth, how much one can buy, and who is in control.

The last half-century demonstrates the same tendency in the healthcare system all over the world. The principal reason for it is the fact that this field is extremely sought after. Almost everybody uses it: We are born into this system; we continue our development in it, we have to constantly use it, and we end our lives within the same system too. So, the field of medicine is extremely “fertile” and brings enormous remunerations, thus making doctors rich and allowing them to take advantage of the system.

Moreover, our reliance on numerous medications (most of the time not even needed) prescribed by doctors no matter whether they are really necessary, obligates us to take them; it translates into enormous profits. Even if medications don’t cost much, their sales still turn the healthcare system into a monopoly that constantly drains resources from the population. That’s why numerous rumors are being spread about “terrible diseases,” various threats, etc.

This explains why there is great competition among drug manufacturers. Moreover, a lot of unnecessary “diagnostic” equipment is produced. The circles that financially take advantage of this state of affairs pressure their governments to include medical-related expenses into a basket of “free” and “mandatory” health care. In other words, we are tied up with a system that exploits us at our own expense; we all are completely defenseless here.

Alongside the mandatory, state healthcare system, there is also a private sector that is much more expensive and even more unexplainable. Of course, it justifies itself to a certain point, since private doctors simply have to cure their patients; otherwise, they won’t have clientele. On the other hand, people have to pay very high costs to receive proper treatments. So, humanity has already received all sorts of proofs that egoism is the main cause of the devastation of our health and that it prevents us from the correct way of life.

These doctrines apply not only to healthcare, since health starts with pure air, balanced food, good ecology, and a caring attitude toward each other. That’s why all of life requires correction in order to build a good basis for maintaining human health.

The big question is if today this task coincides with doctors, pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturers health care interests. One thing is very obvious: common people suffer from the way it’s currently arranged.
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From KabTV’s “Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva (precept) of loving others in the full measure, expressed in the words: “Love thy friend as thyself” (as explained in Items 2 and 3, examine it thoroughly there). This means that each and every one in Israel would take it upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation, and to satisfy all their every needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs.

This condition seems clear, yet in fact, all of reality is concealed here, all that life can give us. And since there is only one condition that stands before us which must be maintained, “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” so everything that happens in my personal life, in relationship with myself, with my family, with the environment near and far, with humanity, with the world, everything that has happened to me up until this moment, must be directed towards only one goal. And at every moment I must check, have I lived it to reach love for others?

If I begin to evaluate myself in this way, then understandably, at every moment there will be many questions for me: “Why? What for? How is one thing connected to another? What do I get out of this?” and so forth. Rejection and resistance will grow, but if I truly want to clarify what must be clarified and corrected, then everything will be considered according to only one criterion, according to that phrase, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

It’s written that this is a major rule in the Torah, in other words, this is the principle that includes all of reality, includes all of my incarnations, and in general, everything that has been. Therefore, someone who is ready to accept this principle as a basis, as a measuring rod for his life, he is ready to accept the Torah, the method of correction. You see, the whole Torah is designed only to realize this principle.

And conversely, someone who doesn’t direct himself towards this, he doesn’t need the Torah. He can read it, be interested in it as a historian, or use it in some other way. Throughout history, everyone has wandered through it as they saw fit. That said, the true Torah is revealed to me, moves me, and opens the way before me only on condition that I aspire to “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

In this way I begin from a distance, from the greatest resistance, from an absolute lack of understanding, from the furthest place, until I gradually begin to understand that this is important, that this is connected to the entire reality, to the world, to all other people and  to my ego. I begin to be interested in this principle at least in an egoistic form, with the hope of somehow gaining from this. And so I have something to hold on to already; this expression becomes important in my eyes because I see this as a means for receiving pleasure, knowledge of self, an opportunity to get something new. And even if this connection is not arranged as I would like it, and passes through the reverse side, this is still a connection, and it’s very important.

A state like this is called “Lo Lishma,” and it’s a high level where I am already holding onto the principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” and through it, love for the Creator, Who is to be found in the other, in the community, as is written, “I live among My own people.” Therefore, everything is arranged for me except the intention.

First, from my “healthy,” materialistic, egoistic desire, I grasp this principle strongly; then it’s possible to speak about intention. First of all, it’s necessary to build a healthy relationship, as is written: “Educate the youth according to his way.” And the more ruthless his desire to fulfill himself, the better because then you can open the way before him and explain to him upon what progress depends.

In general, all the steps leading to both purity and impurity are subject to the same dependency and are found in the same way. Only the relationship is different. About this it is written: “The Creator made this opposite to that” (Ecclesiastes 7). We use the same Kelim for both egoistic and altruistic actions; and only in intention are these actions opposing.

Before me is the system of my relationships with the group. I give myself over to it and through it to the Creator, Who is within it. I want to adhere to Him and thereby fill myself with all the Light of Infinity. This is the desired, worthwhile and imperative approach.

If I begin to confuse myself with superfluous considerations, I only reduce my desire even before it grows, so that I will have something to correct. A person corrects only what is discovered in him, and one should not be ashamed or be timid because of his egoistic spiritual aspirations. This is normal. The main thing is to be clear, that specifically in the system called a “group” I will reveal the Creator.

In general, this system includes all of reality, and even though it now seems to me to be divided, later I will see that everything is included within it. So, it’s important to see the real state, even if at this stage it’s for my own benefit.

This is the beginning of self-nullification; this puts me in front of the perpetual questions: “How can I be incorporated into the system? How do I enjoy it?” And then the Reforming Light works on me. The system is built such that the posterior side of the upper is found in the front side of the lower, and therefore, even if I think about ascent egoistically, the upper perfects my defect and gives me a remedy for my ego. After all, this ego is directed towards “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: Besides prayer, what helps a person “cut his ego to pieces” time after time?

Answer: The question itself is incorrect. There is no other means than prayer. Prayer is the conclusion of all the right stages of examination, when it has become clear that I have nothing more upon which to rely since I am this creature, I am the result of the higher forces. The one thing that is left to me is to turn to the origin from where everything evolves into me. This is to an origin that dominates me one hundred percent.

The rules of the system are not subject to change. So if I am their derivative, what can I do? My brain only helps me to understand that I am enabled. From here it can give me practical advice: “Turn to the Creator.”

That’s it. What other possibilities can there be? Disturbances and friction between us will not help; the opposite: They will shatter the entire system, and even this is just in our eyes. Because in fact, we don’t subtract or add anything, we simply don’t carry out the only action in this entire physical world that was given to us.

So let’s stop behaving like bulls held by the horns and think about what we can truly do. Everything else, one way or another, will produce nothing. Only prayer remains.

But what must the form of the prayer be? How is this request raised about the correction of Malchut which wants to acquire the characteristic of Bina? Regarding this we need to work. If there is already a force acting within the operating system, it must be activated. For me below, a possibility like this exists: To arouse, to call for this force, to the degree of the desire of the level of Adam within me.

And conversely, if I don’t awaken it, I am not connected with it and am left on the level of a beast. In this case it acts on me directly, from above to below, without my participation.

I was given the point in the heart, so I would be able to reach the right question and raise my request. But first I need to check and prepare everything that is required, to clarify what depends on me and what doesn’t, where I am found, and how to arrange my request so that it will reach the target and be influential.

You see what leads me is a system of laws that are not subject to change, devoid of intelligence and emotion. Even if you were to stand on your head before it, this would not help. This says that I need to build my structure in the right way, this being called “existence” from below to above, within the ten Sefirot of the Returning Light. And even if I were still to scream according to my understanding of all the mechanisms of what is happening, in spite of it all, within my scream everything must be arranged correctly.

So for this, the upper Light gives me an environment prepared in the right way to develop my scream. If I relate to a group as a Kli that is ready to convey my unclear scream, built from desire, yet still without form like an infant, then this scream will acquire the right form. This will make it possible to reach the source, the force that acts within creation.

In response, this force descends on me again through the environment. Otherwise, I would not be ready to receive the Light and it would simply burn me. Specifically, the upper Light influences my connection with the friends to the degree that I am loyal to them. It influences the place where we connect, coordinated with it, since only there am I accommodated to it.

So from my side there needs to be a request that passes through the environment, making it possible for them to hear it. And from the side of the Creator the Light also arrives through the environment, accommodates itself to me, so that I will be able to accept, feel and understand it.

It follows, that the environment is a two-way mutual adapter between me and the Creator. Everything takes place within this system called a “group,” a “people,” or more correctly, one soul.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Rabash, Letter 40: And should you ask, “What can one do if he feels that he has a heart of stone toward his friend…”

The advice is very simple: The nature of fire is that when rubbing stones against each other, a fire starts… And only when both of them intend for a gift and not for charity, through the wearing out of the hearts, even of the strongest ones, each will bring out warmth from the walls of his heart, and the warmth will ignite the sparks of love until a clothing of love will form. Then, both of them will be covered under one blanket, meaning a single love will surround and envelop the two of them, as it is known that Dvekut [adhesion] unites two into one.

When a person begins to work in a group he doesn’t feel repulsed by others. But as soon as he feels the need to connect with the friends, as it is the means for attaining the goal, the vessel for the revelation of the Creator and through this connection one attains bestowal and adhesion, and only after that are the others called “friends” and not before; this is where the problems start. These people don’t seem like strangers anymore: Everyone takes on a certain color, a form, and becomes versatile and full of different emotions.

The friends summon in him very complex emotions and it isn’t easy to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to hug them and to sit at the same table with them for a meal or to dance together.  Different evil thoughts overcome him with regard to his relations with others and he begins to feel that it’s very difficult to connect with them.

The more he understands the need to connect, the more distant and unrealistic it seems to him. New interruptions are increasingly evoked. It’s about this kind of work that the Torah tells us first in the story of Abraham and Isaac and then about Jacob, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Eventually, this work becomes the exile in Egypt, when a person feels such terrible distance from others that it’s impossible to ignore it and it’s impossible to connect.

The more a person tries to overcome his ego and to connect with others, the less he succeeds. He experiences “seven years of satiety” and “seven years of hunger,” with regard to the connection since the whole war against the evil inclination is only over the connection. Then there are the plagues of Egypt, the plagues of Pharaoh, that force a person to finally understand that only the upper Light can help him.

He decides that he cannot live without absolute love anymore, that will break his heart and the shards of his heart will penetrate the hearts of his friends. This is the only thing he wants and nothing but it. Thus he begins to work on the love that doesn’t immediately turn into true love, but starts from some preliminary connections, but this is at least a certain connection.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13

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