From Rabash’s article “For Those Who Were on the Faraway Path, Passover is Postponed to a Second Passover”: The greater one’s faith in the Creator is, the stronger one feels detached from the Great King and the more one senses one’s sinfulness—proportionately to the degree of one’s faith in His Greatness. Consequently, a righteous man (the one who apprehends the Highness of the King) sins more than a regular man.

If one acknowledges that one is a sinner, it means that this person was allowed from Above to slightly approach Divinity and was granted a chance to understand that he had sinned.

It is said: “The Creator niggles at the righteous by a width of a hair.” If one feels that he sinned, one shouldn’t be afraid of it, since it is a sign that he has been elevated from Above. That’s why one has to self-strengthen and accept the burden of Heaven, then one achieves success.

To the extent of one’s closeness to the Creator, the feeling of insignificance, wickedness, and detachment from Him becomes stronger, meaning that everything works upside down. A common religious person doesn’t pursue a spiritual path; he prays and thinks that he is close to the Creator. However, the one who happens to connect one’s proximity to the Creator with one’s personal properties is already able to evaluate oneself more fairly, thus one evaluates the distance between him and the Creator accordingly. Each next assessment gets more accurate; it allows one to see how far from the Creator one really is.

We realize that the distance between us and the Creator increases and that we have to observe lots of conditions in order to overcome the remoteness and become closer to Him. This explains why it’s written that “the Creator “picks” at the righteous for the width of a hair.” It’s not because He treats them bad; rather, those who are already quite close to becoming righteous (meaning those who are at the doorstep of a complete and pure bestowal) calculate their similarity with the Creator on a very fine scale. This kind of reckoning allows them to see that they are still extremely far away from the Creator and that they have to undergo multiple corrections.

That’s why there is the concept of the “Second Passover.” It’s for those who failed to exit from Egypt during the first Passover. In a month, they are given another opportunity, which is called “the Second Passover.” People who feel that they are big sinners and whose path is particularly long reach their goal only at the time of the Second Passover.

It means that one shouldn’t worry and despair because the Path seems too long to him, even though many people are taken aback by this fact which forces them to quit their path.

On the contrary, it’s a sign that they are approaching the goal! We have to eventually reach a state when Pharaoh admits that the Creator is the one who is righteous and that he (Pharaoh) is the one who is wicked; this is the state when the exodus from Egypt takes place.
[104372]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/13

Related Material:
What Is Passover?
The Uniqueness Of Passover Is The Light Of Faith
The Whole World Is In Exile, The Entire Earth Is Egypt

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, My Similarity to the Creator, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth”

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Heaven and Earth“

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 15

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Exile and Redemption“

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

Listen to an Audio Version of the Blog
Download: MP3 Audio
[audio:http://files.kabbalahmedia.info/audio/eng_o_rav_2013-08-11_declamation_blog-rav_full.mp3 title=’11.8.13′]

Filed under: Audio Version of the Blog - No Comments →

Question: Should small groups focus their efforts on disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah and integral education in order to bring more people to the group?

Answer: You can try that, but sometimes people live in such remote areas or isolated places where there are very few people and they can waste their energy in vain. Perhaps it’s better to make efforts disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah and integral education virtually.

I believe that we should focus more on integral education since this is what will bring people into the inner group, to study the wisdom of Kabbalah. This is what will happen.

When we go out to the world with integral education, no one is stopping us; we have a method by which we can make the world a better place and we tell people about it. By using the right lexicon we can do whatever we want and no one will stand in our way.

When it comes to the wisdom of Kabbalah, however, there are problems: No one needs it, except for a very few. Can you imagine that you are these few people! You are indeed like diamonds, very rare. All the others will gather by the dissemination of virtual education. I believe that this is how we should operate.

If we started our dissemination today I wouldn’t mention the wisdom of Kabbalah at all. Unfortunately or fortunately that isn’t the case. We had to start from it, to learn the basics of the wisdom until we have grown to our current level. Today we are starting to develop only the method of the correction of humanity and not the points in the heart.
[114108]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
Integral Education: With Kabbalah Or Without?
Overcoming Prejudice
Responsible For Humanity

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: During the last workshop there was a very strong feeling of absolute confidence and joy among the friends. Is this the essence of the male mutual guarantee? Do all my actions regarding the friends have to make them feel this way?

Answer: The right awakening of the friends to the upper spiritual goal is when you show that you are in it and it fills you with great joy, pleasure, and enthusiasm; it gives them a huge charge of energy when you are serious and happily value the group you are in; when you fill the friends with great attentiveness, and all this comes back to you. What is more, it comes back to you in a much greater form.

You shouldn’t make any other calculations here. Try to feel this all the time. If you feel that they treat you disrespectfully, what difference does it make? The Creator arranges things that way for you on purpose. You should work and that’s it. Be smart and outwit the Creator.

Question: Still, I want to understand the concept of mutual guarantee more deeply. What is it?

Answer: Mutual guarantee is when you feel that you are responsible for the fact that all the friends should reach the goal. You feel that you can do that and that it depends only on you.
[114106]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
How Can I Fill The Friend?
Incorporated In One Desire
The Progress Of The Friend Is More Important Than My Own Progress

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Concealment begins when I perceive that it conceals the importance of the group and the Creator from me. Gradually, however, I begin to feel that the concealment supports me. This means that I feel that the concealment is sweet. I feel that this exile that cuts me off from the Upper Light and prevents me from contacting the Creator, from feeling Him is in my favor!

Then this exile becomes sweet since it is by that, by working with it, that I develop my vessels more, form relationships with others and increase my understanding of the Creator. Thus I turn the Holy shadow into revelation. The Masach (screen) that conceals becomes a Masach that reveals.

There is another shadow called the shadow of the Sitra Achra, of the Klipot (shells). When I am in that shadow, I feel that I am in concealment and that I cannot connect to the Creator. I cannot do anything, since I am detached from the goal in that state. This is why this shadow is called the shadow of the Sitra Achra. The Sitra Achra is any state in which I don’t feel that I am connected to the Creator, but that I am drawn to the opposite side, only in the direction of my desire to receive.

This difference between the shadow of Holiness and the shadow of the Sitra Achra is the difference between all the states in which we find ourselves. We have to constantly feel absolutely confident that we are in Ein Sof (Infinity) and that the Creator wants to be fully revealed among us. The problem is only that we feel the concealment which we have to develop even more in order to turn it eventually into a revelation. Then “and the shadows flee” (“Song of Songs”), they will turn into a Masach by which I will be able to relate to the Creator as He relates to me.

So all we have to practically do is to constantly focus ourselves on the Creator. My reality totally depends on Him. Everything that I receive I receive from Him. On the one hand, I receive a feeling from Him which may be unpleasant, but I have to tie myself to the Creator as to the good and the benevolent. I can do that only if I acquire the right attitude towards Him called the intention of in order to bestow.

Although I may feel bad in different discernments, the moment I want to justify the Creator and to treat Him with love, I acquire the intention of in order to bestow by doing so. This intention of in order to bestow allows me to turn my feeling of suffering into a sweet good feeling.

The intention by which I connect to the Creator sweetens all the bad feelings in my desire to receive. I begin to feel the emptiness or the suffering in my desire to receive as essential. It is on top of this emptiness that I build myself a new world with the intention of in order to bestow.
[114040]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/06/13, Shamati #8 “What Is the Difference Between a Shade of Kedusha and a Shade of Sitra Achra”

Related Material:
“Under Its Shadow I Delighted To Sit”
The Joy Of Bestowal, From Which The Concealment Retreats
Born From A “Shadow Of Holiness”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Attaining the Creator depends on the tightness or density of our connection. What does the density refer to? To how compactly and tightly together we are connected. We have to enter one another so that there will be nothing left in me and I will be in the others. This is what everyone should do, each of us in everyone else. There is nothing that is left behind except for the body. Everything that we call the soul, the point in the heart, our yearnings are all in the group.

The environment that absorbs me helps me dissolve in it. Does the group have to think about how to do this? Frankly, we have never spoken about this issue.

For the first time in this convention I feel that I can already start talking about how to establish such an environment, when by artificially drawing away from one another we expand the distance between us in order to fill it with the Light of Hassadim. Then we do the opposite as we contract by tightening the connections between us, this time in order to fill it with the Light of Hochma. We have to gradually reach this type of breathing by the actions we perform together, but it will be fulfilled after we connect. Then we will be able to perform it.

Can you imagine the work that is done in the group? We should all work together, to understand one another, to feel one another internally. Words cannot express this in any way. This is how Kabbalists work, by creating a space inside them for the revelation of the Creator as they expand and contract each time.
[113926]
From the St. Petersburg Convention “Day Two” 7/13/13, Lesson 4

Related Material:
A Small Sacrifice For A Great Goal
Working In Sync
The Strongest Weapon

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

In the News (from The Telegraph): “Professor Antony Flew, the rationalist philosopher who died on April 8 aged 87, spent much of his life denying the existence of God until, in 2004, he dramatically changed his mind.

“After months of soul-searching, Flew concluded that research into DNA had ‘shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved.’ Moreover, though he accepted Darwinian evolution, he felt that it could not explain the beginnings of life. ‘I have been persuaded that it is simply out of the question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter and then developed into an extraordinarily complicated creature,’ he said.”

“Francis Crick, professor, was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA:

“‘An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.’”

“Michael Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, the author of Darwin’s Black Box: ‘The argument of the book is that what science has discovered in the cell in the past 50 years is poorly explained by a gradual theory such as Darwin’s. And if you look at it, the evidence suggests that, in fact, many systems in the cell show signs of purposeful Intelligent Design.’”

“Francis Collins, an American physician-geneticist, former Director of the Human Genome Project: ‘With quantum mechanical uncertainty and the chaotic unpredictability of complex systems, Collins writes, ‘the world is now understood to have a certain freedom in its future development.’

“‘It is thus perfectly possible that God might influence the creation in subtle ways that are unrecognisable to scientific observation. In this way, modern science opens the door to divine action without the need for law-breaking miracles,’ says Collins.

“Given the impossibility of absolute prediction or explanation, the laws of nature no longer preclude God’s action in the world. Our perception of the world opens once again to the possibility of divine interaction.”

My Comment: Science leads us to the realization of the beginning in nature: the cause, plan of development, and goal. However, scientists do not have a complete picture of the universe, including our world as part of it; for this there is the science of the actions of the Creator—Kabbalah. But the God of religions does not exist, there is nature: the laws, properties, and interactions that can be revealed and attained to the extent of similarity with these properties.
[113758]

Related Material:
Did You Order The Universe?
The Unsolved Mystery Of Life
How Is The Element Of Life Created?

Filed under: News, Philosophy, Religion - No Comments →

Specifically when I am found within the group, very close to the friends, we need to awaken the “Surrounding Light” on ourselves, which appears to the degree of density between us, the degree that the power of connection appears between us despite weaknesses, lack of desire, and even our laziness when we are swimming within some kind of indifference.

Even so, it is up to us to attract the Upper Light upon ourselves, and it is attracted only through unity, not through anything else!

Have you already felt this? So, continue to realize the unity even in states where you don’t want anything, for specifically when you don’t want to come close, your efforts will be most useful for prayer is created here.

You will not be successful at all, but you must reach the same state as in a convention, but already with today’s Aviut (thickness), with the newly discovered denseness of ego, when you seem to yearn for this but with a new deficiency, then the new level appears in you.

How does this happen? We know that when the Partzufim begin to be extended from above to below, then first Partzuf Galgalta goes out, and it is clothed Partzuf AB and after it, Partzuf SAG.

In Galgalta was Reshimot Dalet-Dalet (4/4). After that, when it is refined, clarified, then the Reshimot Dalet-Gimel (4/3) is left, and, within the SAG, the Reshimot Bet-Gimel (3/2) is received.

What does the gap between Reshimot de Hitlabashut and Aviut of Dalet-Gimel (4/3) give us? Dalet is a Reshimo of the Light because it is clothed on the Partzuf, and Gimel (3) is a Reshimo of the Kli, the desire (Aviut).

If we advance from above to below, then there is a Tzimtzum of the levels or Partzufim, the states.

What happens if we advance from below to above? Suppose I was at the Saint Petersburg convention and arrived there in state “1.” Let’s symbolically call it “Saint Petersburg Convention 2013.”

At the time of the convention, I received good fulfillment, and now it is up to me to rise to the next state which must be more intense.

In the previous state, I had Reshimot 1/0, where 1, is something illuminated from my future state depending on my Aviut, and now I need to rise to a level in which I will receive 2/1 fulfillment.

For this, I must transform the previous Light (1) that filled me into a Kli, this is to say, the previous Keter (the Light) transforms into the next Malchut (Kli, desire).

How do we do this? We don’t need to think about it. The Light will do this instead of us, but it is up to us to understand that it transforms previous fulfillment into a new deficiency, into a deficiency of the new level. Therefore, it is up to us to advance with “faith above reason,” specifically to yearn for connection just as at the convention.

“2” is the attraction of the Creator because this is a greater Light than before. It is forbidden to confuse this Light with the Light of the Torah, the correction, because this is specifically the light of fulfillment, the discovery of the Creator in us according to equivalence of form with bestowal.

Therefore, every friend included in a group discovers the Creator within connection. In this kind of form, we advance. This is called advancement with “faith above reason.”
[113118]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, “Faith Above Reason”

Related Material:
Faith Above Reason
Faith Against Reason
Faith Above Reason Is Bestowal Above Reception

Filed under: Conventions, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

All of us are found in this world as if in a boat in the middle of a stormy ocean and if you don’t fulfill your function in it, you will not bring any benefit. If you will not work to set the sails in it, hold the wheel, bail the water, and if you don’t row with the oars, then you sink the whole boat.

You are included within the general system and must carry out your function, and if you don’t function, then you harm everyone, like a transistor that is burned within a complex electrical circuit and is disabled, or a guitar string that snaps. It is certainly possible to continue to play the guitar even without this string, but what kind of a tune will this be?

The word “system” encompasses a powerful sense and it awakens fear in a person. Since I am found within a system, I depend on everyone else one hundred percent. I, myself, am not ready to do anything. I cannot strike you, kill you, or compel you to change by force or threats. This is because the connection between us is internal, in my heart, and I am not familiar with your heart! You can arrange all kinds of problems for me in life with the help of the desires in your heart, and what can I do? I am really helpless.

This is called being found within a single system. I don’t depend on some terrorist or dictator, but rather on every person in the world and especially on my closest friends. My entire spiritual life depends on them, and for me there is no possibility of influencing them! I am not even ready to check what is in their heart in order to understand how faithfully they carry out their function in the general system. Perhaps, they are actually destroying it.

The integral system that is being discovered now before us is really terrible. Do you know how we are connected and why; all of a sudden there was a flood in Europe or an unusual heat wave in America? We don’t know the original cause or what the final result will be. In the integral system everything is linked, and these links disappear from before our eyes since we are not “integral.” We don’t act according to that plan, that arrangement.

Up until now, we have developed according to our nature, like animals, only more developed, but this evolution has stopped. We have reached an integral connection that is now revealed before us. Our contribution to the system is the management of this entire system. Therefore, we must discover how we can manage it and carry out this work for everyone as integral components within the system.

It must be clear to everyone what his function is. This is like an electronic device that includes the most complex systems that completely stops functioning because of one burned-out transistor.

It is very important to understand this in our function. At one time it was different and everything depended on the individual, himself, if he was great or small. There is a story about this, that a war was lost because of one nail. The blacksmith lacked one nail and he didn’t secure the horseshoe well; the horseshoe fell off, the horse stumbled, the commander riding on the horse fell off, the enemy saw this, rushed to attack, and won the battle.

Thus, they won the war without any logical basis, only because of a small nail, and not even because of the nail, rather because all the events developed linearly, according to a chain, until reaching the high commander upon whom everything depended. However, we already have left a hierarchical system, a round system operates today. Therefore, it is impossible to find the original reason upon which everything depends. Rather, everything depends on everyone and everyone is linked together and considered equally, both the great and the small, and this is a very big problem.

We already have begun to understand that it is specifically the connection that will give us the spiritual form.
[112902]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/05/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
Not Punishment, But An Integral Responsibility
Criminal Negligence Of Inactivity
On The Way To Infinite Adhesion

Filed under: Crisis, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Globalization, Spiritual Work - No Comments →