Question: Won’t the transition to the space of intentions lead to the neglect of physical actions?

Answer: Yes, it is possible. But what is wrong with that? Why do you think that if a person stopped developing at a certain stage, say, two to three thousand years ago and had started developing in the direction of intentions rather than actions, that today he would be unhappy?

Tell me, as a doctor of science, what is the benefit of your science? What sufferings has it helped to avoid and what blows has it sweetened? Or maybe we are revealing a more enlightened world with its help? Does a person’s inner happiness depend on this? What was two or five hundred years ago? What will be in two or five hundred years?

Comment: I mean, even physical actions within the group, dissemination, and the like. If we decide that intention is the most important…

My Response: The most important thing is to reach the level of eternity! And then, what does everything else matter to us? All of it simply gets annulled.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Correction must consist of cutting off our “I” as if it does not exist. To “cut off” means to give it such fulfillment, such correction, that it would not rebel within me, so that I would not feel its existence.

This is achieved through the filling from above, which comes to us and “clogs” us in such a way that I rise above my will to receive, above my “I.” This is called above reason. And then I do not feel it.

Rather, I feel and care about filling so that I would have absolutely no need for a chair, even the only one, or a pillow, so that I would give everything away without worrying whether I have any fulfillment in relation to others.

Fulfillment does not interest me at all. As if I have no desire to receive.

Such is the condition of the kingdom of priests. And it is clear that this rule appears to us as something abnormal, supernatural, and incomprehensible because we do not take into account that it is the light that come from above that builds the Kelim (vessels), corrects them, shakes them up, and fills them.
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From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: Baal HaSulam writes about the group, the teacher, and the books. If we say the masses will not learn the way we do, can it be that these plans will change?

Answer: Of course the masses should not study the science of Kabbalah. And in general, one should not see studying as studying for the sake of learning, in which case “one’s knowledge is greater than his deeds.”

First of all, studying is a means of leading a person to the decision that one needs to change in accordance with the upper force to merge with It and to attract some higher forces in order to correct himself.

The upper forces that descend for correction come according to the raising of MAN, a request for correction. In other words, all this should not be tied to a book or a study at all. What is there to learn? These are extremely practical things that happen in a person: I have a desire, and it happens! Still, there must be preparation and explanations.

In what form will it reach society? In a more practical way. There are people whose duty it is to immerse themselves in books and extract these ideas from them, to fervently discern them in such a way that they can be conveyed to an ever wider public, that is, to make them simpler and clearer in accordance with the levels of society.

The lower the level of society, the more practical they become. After all, they are less able to perceive the abstract part of it, so much so that, as Baal HaSulam writes in the article “The Last Generation,” there will be those who do not perceive anything at all.

“Do you want me to sign? I will sign it.”

“Why?”

“I do not know why. I see that you act like that, and so will I.”

That is, there will be people who will join in only nominally.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/12/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 147

What Desire Grows During the Preparation Period?

During the preparation period, we develop the desire for spirituality called “until it does not let me sleep.” Baal HaSulam writes that it is like a lustful person who so craves what they love that only this craving stands before their eyes, and they cannot forget it day or night. This is called complete Lo Lishma. And from this, one transitions to Lishma.

How do we make that transition? It is by “I labored and I found.” Why “I found”? This is because essentially we strive for our desire to be filled, but instead we receive a correction to bestow and receive a different kind of fulfillment. There is a kind of optical illusion here because we do not receive what we longed for. Only after we begin to receive the fulfillment do we see that this is what we truly yearned for, even without knowing it. That desire had taken on a different form within us.

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Preparation to the Lesson

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1st part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati #16 “What Is the Day of the Lord and the Night of the Lord, in the Work?” (10.9.21)

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2nd part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 31, 32 (6.5.2006)

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3rd part of the Lesson — Studying with Friends

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4th part of the Lesson — Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” “The Letters of Rav Hamnuna Saba”

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Until today humanity still perceives that there are many forces, many purposes in the world, that there is no single thought, no single force, no single desire, no single goal; that we are driven by various impulses, urges, and that over us stand numerous “commanders” and causes for what occurs.

But suffering, both in previous generations and in ours, on the good path and on the bad one, gradually purifies the Aviut (coarseness).

Precisely because on the one hand a person becomes more “coarse,” and on the other investigates more and more, and comes to understand that he is incapable of understanding and investigating, this brings him to the revelation of the truth that he does not understand how creation is structured. This gives him the prerequisite to demand the revelation of the Creator, just like the demand that arose in Abraham.

Therefore when Abraham began to seek the Creator, he was alone. Later others joined him, those spoken of in the Torah, people who grasped this idea and went along with him: his sons, grandchildren, and students who constantly joined him.

All of this became a special system for educating future generations within Abraham’s group.
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From the 1^st part from the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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If a person clarifies the final goal better for himself, does he thereby acquire more strength and a greater sense of the necessity to engage in Arvut (mutual guarantee), in work within the group, in investing in it?

This is built on a mutual basis. No matter how inspired you may be by the final goal, you will not be able to receive much from it without receiving an awareness of the importance of that final goal from the group.

You have no strength and no connection with the Creator that would shine upon you and give you awareness of who He is and what He is. Only your friends can tell you how great He is. Therefore you will not succeed if you delve into clarifying what final adhesion is while being alone. It will not add anything to you.

In order for the importance of the Creator to truly obligate you to action, you must turn to the group. It will amplify the awareness of the Creator’s greatness. For if a person has a goal, he must come to the group so that the group will exalt it, and he will constantly think about that goal.

Question: How can one clarify this goal in detail?

Answer: You cannot do that! Why do you need the details? For you, the main thing is to have “fuel,” pressure, a sense of necessity.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: How do we understand Rambam’s words that “you may not reveal the meaning of ‘slavery’ to women and children?”

Answer: A person is in various forms of dependence on his desire to receive. If his desire to receive is not satisfied, one will not be able to advance and will be obliged to provide his desire with what it needs first. Therefore he is called a “slave” of desire.

The level of “slaves” is divided into several categories. There are genuine slaves, who do not understand they are in slavery and are unaware of their bondage.

There are also “children” and “little ones” who already feel weak and small in regard to their desire to receive, and who know that it dominates both their minds and hearts. Sometimes a person has the opportunity to get to know himself from the outside and see how powerless he is; sometimes he falls into a state where he just does something, like a small child, without reason.

By “women” we mean a state in which we feel dependent. There is a desire to receive, and it is like a husband, like a master. And so we feel dependence and lack (unfulfilled desire), which we must fulfill. So we fulfill it.

We are talking about various attitudes. There is nothing we can do. People employ them, and that is how they exist. Otherwise, it is impossible to live. They look for additional pleasures to fulfill their desires: fashion, public opinion, or something else.

People must have some goals in life so that they gradually fulfill themselves. Let it be football or some other game in life. There could be some changes for the whole world, one thing, then another to feel alive.

This is called life, a change in types of pleasure. This is our world. You can see it every time there is a new fashion, every time something is announced as an event or innovation. “Harry Potter,” then The Matrix, then something else. It gives you a sense of life. Otherwise, what is there to live for? That is the way people work: they look for something new to keep alive.

This is called a “woman.” She feels addicted and falls for this addiction because there is no other way. How can she exist? It is said that she “depends on a man,” “wants a man.” The Talmud and the TES say that a woman prefers “one measure and stupidity (i.e., being dependent) to nine measures as unmarried.”

We can talk a lot about these three categories: “slaves,” “children,” and “women,” about how it manifests itself in our world from the point of view of psychology, how it works in social circles, how it descends into matter and functions in it. We are already seeing this. Given that the public understands this, we can already start explaining it in lectures, and from there move to the reasons, the spiritual roots.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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To people who dwell within the desires of “slaves,” “children,” or “women,” the method must be explained gently, that is, in a way that the will to receive feels as though it is moving toward fulfillment, toward pleasure, toward what currently seems to it to be good.

But why do we play what seems like a kind of false game with those who are in these states? Because we know that by tempting them with today’s fulfillments, with these little “gifts,” things that the will to receive currently wants, we are, in fact, growing this desire, and it develops.

And as it develops, it reaches states in which the part of Bina within it begins to grow. Bina means “understanding,” from the word “Avana”—reason, critical analysis.

A person, besides his Malchut, besides the desire, begins to develop a part of Bina, and then, in the connection and clash between them, he begins to understand his state and analyze it, to the extent possible, from the perspective of Bina, which means more objectively, independently of Malchut, of the will to receive.

At that point, a person changes even his fulfillments; he begins to want something else. After playing various games, a child comes to understand that he wants not only games, but something more serious, and more and more so. For example, a girl wants to play with a doll, but not with a baby. Even though the baby is real, the doll suits her. It is the form of her pleasure. But for a mother, a doll will not do; she wants a living baby. That is her “game.” To each their own.

So it turns out we are seemingly lying to the will to receive and to the people who are with us at their first lecture or in their first year of study, and we tell them that everything will be fine.

Of course, we are not lying about the fact that it will be fine, but it will be fine, not for the vessels (Kelim) that they have now, but for the ones that will grow. And for the current vessels, you give some candy, a game of hide-and-seek, a car, or something else, for them that is good. So give them that now. Each time, give them these baits so they will keep progressing.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/13/2025, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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