Question: When do we raise MAN, a prayer?

Answer: We raise MAN when we can give up our receiving Kelim (desires) and connect between us only with our Kelim of bestowal. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t take our receiving desires into account at all.

Suppose that I live in a palace and I have lots of cars and planes and you live in a regular apartment and you have one car, and he lives in a tent and only has a wagon and his horse died. So what would it mean for us to connect between us?

For this we must give up all of our property for each other, meaning that we gather everything that we have together and beyond this we connect through our GE in bestowal. Connection with the desires of bestowal (GE) also requires a relative nullification in the desires of receiving (AHP).

This doesn’t mean that one really has to give up all one’s property, but it is necessary to take into account nullifying your AHP, lowering its importance. Then the connection will be made on higher levels. This means that we cannot just connect with Nitzutzin (sparks); this will require us also to connect in the future with our AHP, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation.”
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From the preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/08/14

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Preparation for the Lesson

Workshop

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World”

“The Book of Zohar” — Selected Excerpts, “On the Night of the Bride,” Item 146

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 64

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee,” Item 23

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Question: The role of the nation of Israel is to direct the world towards bestowal. How does this fit with the principle that it is impossible to correct anything in the world besides myself?

Answer: The world is perfect, meaning that I cannot correct any person besides myself. I cannot sit compulsively on someone and oblige him to change, like the Socialists did in Russia. I will not gain anything with it.

The only thing that I am prepared to do is to explain to a person what is happening. And if he decides that this is truly right and he wants to change his fate, then he will change.

We are talking from the side of our history, from the books of the Kabbalists upon which we rely. We have nothing else upon which to rely. We see that everything that is happening today is written in books, and so we have the strength to think that tomorrow will also happen as it is written in them.

If this was right yesterday and today, it is logical to suppose that the Kabbalists spoke the truth about what will happen tomorrow also. So I want to hear their voice and ensure for myself and my children a better future.

And besides this, they explain everything that is happening so logically, and in particular what is happening to the people of Israel, the reasons for anti-Semitism in the whole world. There are a number of reasons that it is impossible for us to relax and wait.

I don’t intend to correct anything; indeed, I cannot change a person and the world. I only show him what is written in our sources and don’t compel him to believe in something with blind faith. I explain the opinion of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which scientific investigators also support more and more day by day, and he will decide for himself.

I don’t convince him to accept our method, and it doesn’t belong to me either. If I write about some natural law, I am not obliged to add that I love it and join with it. Who is interested in my attitude when I am talking about a law? I can write that I don’t like the law of gravity because it pulls me down and doesn’t let me fly. But this doesn’t change anything about the law itself. It remains the same law.

This is the type of explanation that we must give, facts that cannot be refuted, and after that everyone has to decide what to do. “There is no coercion in spirituality.” He must understand that there is no escape, and we must work on the connection between us if we want to be saved from death and save our children so that they will not literally devour us.

Question: People who are connected don’t die?

Answer: No! Through the connection between them they build such a shield on themselves that protects them so much that their haters become friends.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: I would like to become the master of time and my life. You said that for this I must change the priorities and make the world around me more important than myself. But how can I do this and transfer my attention from myself to the outside?

Answer: To transfer the importance from myself to what is outside of me is called moving towards antimatter. And this is not the physical anti-world about which physics speaks, rather it is a much greater change.

Question: How is it possible that another person will become more important to me than myself?

Answer: This is called a reversal in senses, a reversal in desire. In you now is the desire to enjoy for your own sake. Whereas you have to feel that you want to give pleasure to someone else.

And this doesn’t mean that you are clothed within him like some kind of ghost, that you pass into his body and have pleasure there. This would still be egoistic fulfillment, like the pleasure of a mother who is wrapped up in her baby, is concerned only about him, and lives in his desires.

You remain in your body, but perceive the other person as more important than yourself. And this is not at all the same love that exists in our world. This person is a complete stranger to you and you don’t have any natural love regarding him, as you do for your children and your wife. Only a reversal like this transforms you into the master of your life for then you go beyond the limitations of time.

Time was born at the moment of the Big Bang. So you must go back beyond the limitations of the Big Bang, to rise above the point of the creation of matter. Then from that subjective feeling of time that exists within you now in your egoistic perception, which depends upon what is bad and what is good for you, you pass to the perception of time in another person and value what is bad or good for him.

And this is a fundamental change for you transform from being a receiver to one who bestows. And that is how you transform into a master of time and your life.
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From the program “A New Life” 4/17/2014

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Question: Isn’t our entire work in concealment? And isn’t it from the state of concealment that we have to bless the Creator?

Answer: How can you bless Him in a state of concealment: to suffer pain and to bless Him? It is impossible to bless the Creator from a state of concealment if you are in an opposite state from Him.

If I have the same desires like Him, I am in a state of revelation. If I am in a state of concealment it means that my desires are opposite to Him. There are special states like working at night, but if you bless the Creator in the dark, you have to turn the darkness into Light.

If the Creator afflicts me and I say “thank you very much” and ask for more, it is like the son who is proud of his own powers and fights the enemy with a sword and a shield made of cardboard. This cannot be.

By my corrections I may reach a state in which instead of blows I feel mercy, then love. I can then bless to the same extent, as it says, “all my bones shall say.”

It is impossible otherwise. It is impossible to feel pain and to bless at the same time. If I feel bad, I curse the Creator. I cannot be neutral and open my mouth to bless since we speak about the work in the heart.

If my desires are corrected according to the Creator, I bless Him in them. First I have to restrict my desires and to annul myself. All the desires that I can turn into bestowal and correct by the Torah are the desires with which I can bless.

A blessing is a feeling in the desire that is in equivalence of form with the Creator, that feels how good and benevolent He is by bringing blows unto my desire to receive. I annul my connection with the desire to receive and ascend above it. Therefore my desire to receive suffers, yet I don’t enjoy the pain like a masochist but rather rise above the desire to receive to the desire to bestow.

I am then glad about the blows that my desire to receive feels in the absence of the Light, in total darkness. My “self” is adhered to bestowal, above my ego.

My desire to receive will never receive anything but I change what I identify with it. For example, a girl gets pregnant and has a baby. First she only worried about herself: What she can enjoy, her dresses, having fun, and all sorts of things. But now she only worries about the baby. Her whole heart is in him and all her attention is focused on him. She doesn’t care about what happens to her, as all her thoughts are about him and he is the most important thing to her.

If I exit myself this way it is called annulling myself. When I am inside the others, it means that my whole heart is in the Creator. This is my correction. Then it makes no difference what darkness I feel inside, as long as the others feel the Light inside.

Question: Won’t we demand revelation?

Answer: It depends on what revelation means to you. Revelation for me is worrying about others. It isn’t the same Light that fills my ego, my desires. I attain the Light that I receive in others since this is my beloved baby. To the extent that I am in others and worry about them I can demand the Light.

Then I can feel what they receive thanks to my exertion. This is called day for me. So in them I feel the Creator’s presence and thus approach the end of correction. These are not the same vessels I had before. I have established my attitude to people and to the Creator on top of them, but I don’t receive a filling in my old vessels.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/01/14, The Book of Zohar

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Question: How can we help the world reach Arvut (mutual guarantee) if it is continuing to sink into theft and corruption day by day?

Answer: The upper force awakens the ego in people, and they act as their ego dictates. There are people who, for example, deliberately are driven to situations where they steal.

According to this example, the Creator shows how corrupt our world is. They simply demonstrate how bad our egoistic nature is: what it does with us, how much they suffer from it themselves, and how much we suffer.

Everyone suffers in the world because it is so egoistic. We waste a fortune on weapons, on hatred. If you look at the Earth from the depths of the universe, how do we look?

We ask why they don’t come to us from other galaxies. But what would they come for? What would they do here if they were so advanced that they could reach us? Viewing our planet from a distance, we look like disgusting cockroaches who hate and eat each other.

We use the intelligence and emotion that we have received for self-destruction. So who would want to come to us?

We must understand our situation and want to correct it. The only way to fix it is Arvut. If we want to accept the law of Arvut, to connect together and help each other, we attract the Light that Reforms. The Creator must be among us; who are we without Him? We are completely dominated by our terrible nature.

Of course, we cannot be responsible for each other. How do you know what will happen to you in the next moment and what you will think? How can I rely on you as a guarantor for my future? This is like a baby who tells me that he will be my guarantor.

If we seriously want Arvut, we need the higher power to be revealed, which will be our guarantor. How does one attract it?

If we try as much as possible, at least in a very small percentage, to become guarantors and want the higher power to be revealed among us and realize the Arvut, then this will happen. This is the first condition.

And we are told: “If you want to be responsible for each other, then you will receive the Torah, the Light that Reforms.” You are not required to be responsible for everything a thousand years in advance or to go to prison in your friend’s place. At the moment you are ready to be responsible for him, the Upper Light will be revealed and you will immediately receive the Torah without delay or pause. This means that the Creator is here as our guarantor.

Therefore from the start, we are told: “When you accept the conditions for Arvut, you will receive the Light that Reforms.” This means that the Creator is with you, only you need to be slightly ahead. And if you want this, you will get it.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Without a doubt many couples think that they are conceding to each other, without understanding that they are not doing this for another person but for themselves so that they will be left alone in peace. So what concessions should be made?

Answer: True concession is when I rein myself in, even though at that time I am ready to explode because I think I am right, but I begin to react to my partner according to how he or she would want me to respond. This means I am “clothed” in the other person.

This system should be developed and necessarily requires the support of the environment. Married couples must talk about these situations all the time and practice them in order to reach a state where habit becomes second nature.

Suppose the house is a mess. Why should you scold each other and say something superfluous? Go immediately to common ground, which is reciprocal and good. Begin to hug and kiss in the middle of this mess.

The main thing is that you should feel well. For with a feeling of happiness and love, you won’t even want to change anything and you will live in serenity all your life in the middle of this mess.

Sometimes you go into some apartment and everything is clean and spotless, but there is no warmth. Whereas at home, with you, there is warmth from an atmosphere of love, reciprocity, and  inner contact.

In a Japanese couplet it is written: “The child dies; how cold it will be at home; there is no longer someone who will pierce a hole in the window paper.” This means that as long as the child played pranks, warmth prevailed at home. Now the child is no more, and it will be cold.

That is how it is here also. Everything depends upon the feeling. This is the main thing to be done.
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From the program “A New Life” 5/28/2014

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The role of the Israeli nation as the Creator’s servants, as a kingdom of priests, is to be the ones who explain the method, and that is possible only by educating people. We must explain things so that a person will understand that he has two options: the path of the Torah and the path of suffering, which means that there is a good way and a bad way. There are two roads before you leading to one goal, and it is up to you which road you take.

If you are not ready, you undoubtedly will take the wrong road. When you get on this road, it doesn’t seem bad at all, but actually very attractive as any path to hell where at first ice cream and gifts are given out. Thus, the desire to receive pulls you, and you are drawn gladly in that direction.

However, once you get on that road, there is no way out. The presents disappear and blows begin to hit you. So, you have no choice but to advance.

There is, however, another road that doesn’t seem so attractive at first, especially for your ego. It even repels you since it demands that you connect to others and care about them.

Our egoistic nature rejects this road internally. However, if you advance along the right road in the way of “I shall hasten it” (Ahishena), you receive assistance from Above, which is called the Light that Reforms.

To the extent that you summon this Light, you actually advance nicely. The Light is ready to help you at any given moment and to turn all your bad feelings into good ones. Everything depends only on your efforts. The Light that Reforms is the power in the connection between people if they want to ascend above their desire to receive and to attain bestowal.

You cannot do that along the wrong road but only along the right road that Light always guides you through all the points toward the goal, and, although you don’t understand and don’t know how to get there, one thing is clear: you must connect more strongly to others.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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