Audio Version Of The Blog – 12/2/24
Posted on December 2nd, 2024
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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 14
What Is the Reception of the Torah?
The reception of the Torah is to stand at the foot of the mountain and receive the Creator who resides at its summit. The mountain itself symbolizes all the doubts that come to us. If we can overcome these doubts and all the questions that the Creator intentionally places between Himself and the person, then this mountain will become the vessel for receiving the Torah.
The Torah is received solely within these doubts, within feelings of despair. On one side is the Creator, who intentionally sets these challenges against us and for our sake. On the other side is us at the foot of the mountain, viewing all the doubts above us, with the Creator above them.
The reception of the Torah happens only after we succeed in forming a vessel from all these doubts. Then, within this vessel, comes the revelation of Godliness. We discover that the Creator is at the summit of all such doubts. Only when the Creator resides above the doubts that come to us do we reach the revelation of Godliness, the acquisition of the force of bestowal and the revelation of eternity and perfection.
We ourselves rise a level, not only the point in the heart, but “Moses” ascends Mount Sinai solely by means of these doubts, through his “people” who sanctify and prepare him, and then he fully receives the Torah. This relates to the topic of the holiday of Shavuot.
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Question: When we compose a prayer together in the ten, it still doesn’t feel as internal as when you have a personal dialogue with the Creator. Did Kabbalists discuss prayers with each other and compose them, or is this a modern practice?
Answer: Kabbalists often spoke with each other, but only about ascending to the next degree.
Question: Should the prayer that comes from your heart align with the one we express in the ten?
Answer: Yes, a person cannot have multiple prayers.
Question: Let’s say I genuinely want to pray for my friends, for the world, for the sages, and that is my true pain, which I can awaken when I am alone. I can’t immediately articulate it in dialogue within the ten. Should I first try to tune into the prayer rather than just write something down, which might end up as a collection of words?
Answer: Yes, we must reach a state where there is a clear, unified yearning among the friends in the ten for moving forward, for the Creator, for a connection between them that evokes a response from above.
Question: How did Kabbalists prepare themselves for prayer? For us, it seems like we read texts and then quickly transition to prayer as if it is something evident. But preparation is the most important part.
Answer: This is the preparation. It is like tuning a musical instrument: if it is tuned correctly, the melody will be harmonious.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 20 “Lishma [for Her sake]”
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Question: In the ten we build the force of the Creator, the force of love. What does it mean to be merciful in the relations between us? What is mercy?
Answer: Mercy lies in the fact that we wish to see our friends only in good connections between them and close to the Creator.
Question: How do we feel whether we are in the intention for the sake of giving? If a person merits such an intention and feels he is working for bestowal, does this not exclude the state of “Lishma?”
After all, in the intention for the sake of bestowal, he acts without thinking about it, without any calculations.
Answer: What do you mean by “without any calculations?” He must see his desires and intentions, sort, and implement them. This is how he will come to Lishma. Any of our actions are a conscious calculation.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/17/24, Writings of Rabash “Abraham Arose”
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Question: What is the correlation between connection and dissemination?
Answer: First of all you must strive for connection. Secondly, you must engage in dissemination so that it helps connection because connection is the most important thing.
On the other hand, you cannot unite if you do not disseminate, since together they lead to one goal. You cannot think about yourself without thinking about the world, since you exist so that through you the force of connection will come to the world.
So do not even hope that you will find unity without working with the world. You are obliged to work with it not only to attract people to campuses [Kabbalah classes], but so that they know about the need for connection.
In this way, when they listen to you at least once, they will automatically become included in your message even if they have no knowledge of it. If you have contact with them, that is it, now this field that you have awakened also passes through them.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Should we pray when there is a reason from the Creator, or should we ourselves look for reasons and initiate prayer in the ten?
Answer: The reason for prayer is your desire to unite.
If you want to get closer and see that there are still great disagreements between you, you involuntarily turn to the Creator so that He will unite you more. The best prayer is when you ask the Creator for unification.
In this case, you really feel how much you lack this and how much strength you receive to realize the unification.
Such contact with the Creator is the most direct and the most reliable because He does not expect anything more from you. As it is written: “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together, as well.” Together—”gam yachad” (“together as well” in Hebrew), where “as well” means, as the Kabbalists explain, that “the Creator sits together with them as well.”
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: What can we pray for, and what should we pray for?
Answer: We must pray for everything and turn only to the Creator because He is the source of everything that happens to us. There is nothing that does not come directly from Him.
The Creator is the forcefield that holds us together. We exist in this field, and when we pray, with our desires we arouse the desire of this field and its physical forces, which are still elusive for us because they work for bestowal.
We egoists work for reception, and this field is spiritual; it works for the sake of giving, and thus we do not feel it. But the moment we begin to ask for unification and rise above egoism, we become somewhat similar to the Creator’s field.
Then we influence it, and it affects us. These are the laws of physics. There is nothing supernatural here.
Therefore we can ask for anything, any little thing, from the work of a single cell to the whole organism to interaction with relatives, friends, and the world, with anything and anyone.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Should the groups of ten be concerned about forming closer connections between tens? And what should they do together?
Answer: I am part of a specific group of ten because I want to reveal the Creator. I do not want to end my life like an animal with my bones rotting in the ground and nothing remaining of me. Once I reveal Him, I uncover a piece of eternity and perfection within myself, and that piece stays with me. That is it. I am already ascending from our world to the upper world, and it is already within me.
Therefore when I am in a group of ten, I strive to reach this level with it in order to attain the Creator so that He would act upon me through the ten, and through it I act upon Him. If I feel I can gain additional force from another group of ten, I encourage my ten to connect with them. In this way, we increase the Creator’s influence on us.
As it is said: “The greater the society, the higher the King.” That is all. But this only applies if I already have a group of ten where I am investing all my effort, and I see that another ten, and another, and yet another could help us. That is why we gather at the congress.
Even if we do not interact between groups of ten every day, we have this opportunity at the congress where we mix with one another. During each lesson at the congress, I sit in a different group of ten. I do not even know with whom or how. This provides tremendous advantages.
I absorb the desires of everyone in a spontaneous group of ten that changes during each lesson. In other words, I experience a variety of different influences, and this helps a lot.
I am speaking personally now about how I am impressed when I listen to various groups of ten, immerse myself in them, and return from the congress with completely different impressions than I had before. Even without sitting among the attendees, I can feel from afar how much this benefits me.
Therefore, integrating each group of ten into other groups is very beneficial. This can be done not only at the congress, but also in everyday life, preferably in your native language. When a group of ten feels that it would like to enhance its internal strength, it can connect with another group while maintaining its cohesion.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: You said that knowledge is what we feel in egoism. Does this mean that faith is what we try to build above it, that is our soul?
Answer: Yes, knowledge is egoism and faith is altruism, the opposite quality when I act not for myself, but for another.
The Creator shattered egoism into many parts so that I could work either from my own egoistic part or for the sake of others. This becomes my altruistic component.
If the Creator had not broken the vessel, I would have no way to achieve the quality of bestowal. To whom would I bestow? Now, however, I am compelled to bestow to someone outside myself. This other person was once part of me. We were all together in one body before the shattering of Adam. Now they are outside of me, which is why I hate and reject them.
But if I work on them as though they were with me in one desire, in one body as a single whole, then I am acting altruistically.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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Question: Sometimes we say we should strive to reveal the Creator and sometimes we should go by faith above reason. Why should we go blindly?
Answer: To go by faith above reason means to walk with the eyes of the Creator, not blindly. You will not see the spiritual world with your egoistic view, you see only if you rise above egoism.
Therefore, the condition is given to go by faith above reason. You just need another sensory organ, and you are being directed to it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”
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