Audio Version Of The Blog – 11/19/24
Posted on November 19th, 2024
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 1
Chapter 1 Prayer from the Depth of the Heart
Since it is written “half,” we understand that more than half is not demanded of us; our half is called “prayer.” Prayer bursts forth from our heart as a result of our emotions. It must break through from the depth of the heart before we start critiquing the feeling in our heart with our intellect, before we start thinking about it or understanding it. The feeling hidden in the heart before we try to control it is called “prayer.”
If prayer precedes our control over it, why are we told that we must pray and reach a prayer, as if prayer depends on our efforts or free choice?
The answer is that we must reach the desire called “prayer” through various actions and means that help bring us to the correct desire. Prayer is a summary; it is the result of our preparations. Accordingly, each time we pray, we feel a certain kind of connection to the Creator in our heart and our prayer to the Creator is always new.
A person can open an ordinary prayer book, written two thousand years ago by the Men of the Great Assembly, and by saying the same words every day, feel something new each day. The interpretation changes so much that the words spoken yesterday no longer fit today. In such a prayer, we feel that we had never said the words that we spoke today.
What words should we aim for in our prayer? Primarily they should be words that speak of the Creator’s glory. Why? It is because in the Creator’s glory, we do not speak of His essence—who He is, or what He is—but we discuss His qualities of bestowal and how we appreciate such qualities. The extent to which we value the Creator’s qualities of bestowal is the extent to which we measure the strength of our connection, closeness, and alignment with the Creator.
Question: We meet in the ten every day for half an hour. Some friends are often in such a state that they do not come to the meetings because they feel that they cannot give the others the importance of the goal or could even harm the ten.
What should you do: not come or come anyway?
Answer: There is nothing worse than absence. If a person could have come to a lesson or a meeting of the ten but decided not to attend, there is no excuse for this. After all, any participation of his somehow moves the ten forward.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: On one hand the light is constant; on the other the lights come on holidays and on Saturday (Shabbat). Does our perception change because of this?
Answer: The light changes only relative to people, but in reality it is unchanged. It is absolutely even and infinite, and fills everything, and all the usual sensations that unfold on the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh day (Shabbat) and further into holidays and special dates are special states of our soul.
They will exist until we completely correct it. As soon as we correct our common soul, everything will turn into one continuous light, into a single day.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: How does the ten correctly feel the deficiencies that it perceives from the environment?
Answer: How does the ten properly receive all the feelings, desires, lacks, influences and so forth from the environment? There is no single, straightforward answer to this question.
The ten’s perception is based on the relationships between the friends because a ten is ten Sefirot that form a specific structure of interconnection. Depending on the combination of these ten egoistic parts, they create a certain spiritual structure.
Then, to the extent that this structure resembles the Creator even in the smallest way, it perceives Him through the law of equivalence of form. Just as in our world we perceive only what we can generate within ourselves.
In reality, I do not feel what is around me, but rather what I can create within myself, and then I seem to see this world as if it were outside of me. However, in truth, it is within me. This concept is studied in the topic of the perception of reality.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What does spiritual love mean in the group?
Answer: Spiritual love in the group is our connection with each other when everyone feels their dependence on others and the need to be in such unity with them that in this connection they gradually reveal the Creator and the entire spiritual world.
Question: How do we understand our purpose both materially and spiritually?
Answer: Your purpose for being in this world is to ascend to the Creator and be connected to Him.
Question: What is the role of the group in strengthening the spiritual path and protecting against the influence of an egoistic environment?
Answer: It is one hundred percent help to each other. Without it, there is no way to reach even the lowest spiritual level.
Question: How on one hand can you boldly express yourself in the group and on the other hand be afraid to bring your selfish expectations into it?
Answer: You will soon feel how taking part in learning elevates and cleanses you of all selfish desires.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/24, “We have gathered here”
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Question: We have the opportunity to attend the lesson every day. If negative situations occur in life, they act as a repelling force. There is also an attracting force when we are drawn to it on our own. There are some obligations that just feel shameful not to come to the lesson. What would be the most effective way to draw friends to the lesson?
Answer: They simply need to accept it as a rule: I do not miss this daily lesson. Whatever I can do, I will do just so I do not miss it. That is all.
Question: At one point, you made the decision not to miss lessons. Was that a sense of responsibility to the teacher, to the Creator, or an internal feeling? What kept you committed?
Answer: What kept me committed was the fact that Rabash, a few other friends, and I were the male part of the lesson. I knew that I needed it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/9/24, Writings of Rabash “Seek Peace and Pursue It”
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Question: Everyone has complaints and grievances toward the Creator, as well as feelings of discontent. But when I do not feel these myself, I go to the chat and write something uplifting and positive. And if my post is ignored, I experience a lot of internal work: “Why are they not inspired?” Is this the right form of work?
Answer: Absolutely not! Under no circumstances should you look for negative phenomena that would drive you forward.
Negative experiences push you toward the goal, but you should not seek them out on your own. Your focus should be on advancing positively, which happens when you search within yourself for issues related to the greatness of the Creator: why you do not feel His greatness enough, His vastness, and His presence filling all of creation. But you should not intentionally provoke a sense of negativity or incorrect relationships with friends. Do not awaken the left line.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Are the actions of bestowal always repelled by our stony heart?
Answer: Yes, the actions of bestowal are always against your stony heart.
Question: You understand this perfectly well with your mind, but your heart does not agree. You perform these actions, but your heart hardens even more. What is this state, and how do you work with it?
Answer: Fight your heart. Ask the Creator to correct it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/24, Parashat Noah
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Question: I see all my friends in the ten as righteous because the Creator stands behind them, and the importance of the Creator is above all for me. Is it correct to view my friends in this way?
Answer: No, it is not necessary for all your friends to appear as righteous in your eyes just because the Creator stands behind them. The Creator is behind each of us, and how He wishes to manifest Himself relative to each of us is His private governance. Therefore you should look at the individual state of each friend.
Question: Yes, but I can justify them with faith above reason. That is my work, is it not?
Answer: That is your work. But you cannot see your friends as absolute righteous in every state they go through. I understand that you want to see them that way because they are governed and filled by the Creator. Nevertheless, you must regard them as acting desires in our world.
Question: Still, I must justify them and make them righteous in my eyes, right?
Answer: And if you are mistaken?
Comment: But justifying them is my annulment; I annul myself before them.
My Response: You are annulling yourself, but what about them?
Comment: Outside of me, there is only the Creator.
My Response: Exactly, as it is said about Noah, that he was righteous in his generations.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/24, Parashat Noah
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