I am filled with anxiety about our convention in February. We are given work from above, an opportunity, responsibility for the souls, as if they are put into our hands in order to take care of them. This is a dear and great responsibility.

The Creator wants to be discovered and places before you conditions so that you must relate to this vessel as you would relate to the Creator. For precisely the right integration between all parts of the vessel, all parts of the Divinity, constructs the form of the Creator.

All of these desires that arrive from all ends of the world are the base; they are the area in which He is revealed. They invest so much, they are with us all the time. Many groups simply lock up their centers and come to the convention in full force.

And this imposes upon us a great responsibility. This is not talking about the organizational part, but rather, how we embrace and absorb them immediately and are absorbed within them. We are not hosting them; rather, we include them among us without any difference, in a completely new general condition that doesn’t exist in us or in them at the moment.

They are making supreme efforts, arriving from the most distant places, loaded with an unprecedented intensity, and we must reach a new state for connection, for the yearning for mutual bestowal within which the Bestower will be revealed.

Question: If we succeed in melting into one another and becoming integrated within an immense common desire, will this create a world vessel on a new level? How will we not waste the opportunity? This is the realization of everything that we have been waiting a lifetime for.

Answer: We must awaken one another, be responsible for each other. Each one is now determining his fate.

Question: It is up to us to acquire the deficiency of the friends. How do I pay for this?

Answer: By renunciation of the ego. There is no other price. It is as if we peel the shell from the heart in order to adhere to the friends until we feel their desire as our desire. We connect the desires that yearn for the discovery of the Creator. We connect and expect the arrival of the Light that Reforms, the power that will connect us and be revealed in us as the power of bestowal. And then we will flow within the characteristic of bestowal. From now on, all of our deeds are derived only from this feeling; We feel that we are in a sea of bestowal. It envelops us in warmth from all directions and obligates us with subtlety to carry out our obligations. I nullify myself and then this characteristic of bestowal works through me.

But this is only mutual integration. And after that it is up to me to grow like an embryo, to hold the characteristic of bestowal within my ego. It is like a boat set into the sea; I want to increase the activity of the general bestowal that is revealed in me on the first level, the initial stage of the Light of Nefesh de Nefesh”. Through my willing combination with this characteristic, I strengthen the action, they say 620 times in 125 spiritual levels. And all of this is the result of my participation, of my efforts in a sea of bestowal in which I discover myself like an embryo in the water’s of its mother’s womb.

In the beginning I give myself up over the growing desire to receive, nullifying it in order to dwell within the characteristic of bestowal, identifying with it. And this is active work, active nullification of myself, and is realized over an opposing ego. The “flesh” that is added to the embryo awakens opposition and it is as if it builds from itself a negative image of itself.

Question: So how do we attain all of this? How do we acquire the deficiency of the friends?

Answer: This is through faith above reason. I want the characteristic of bestowal to dominate in me above all of my intellect and feeling. I already understand that I am not the master of my own house. In every moment of my life something dominates me that is revealed against my will. But there is also free choice. I choose the dominance of the characteristic of bestowal. In the face of all the desires that are revealed in me and arouse rejection, indifference, and additional negative things in me, I want bestowal to dominate in me.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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“Introduction toThe Book of Zohar,” “The Torah and a Prayer,” Item 184: And only after he is included in all three corrections of our holy fathers will he begin to correct Divinity, from the place Jacob the patriarch had left for us: to elevate fear to the quality of exaltedness because He is great and rules over everything. Afterwards, he will enter the house of assembly and will pray his prayer. That is, he should pray and extend the upper lights in her, with the fear of exaltedness, to bring her into the end of correction. Then it is written, “And He said to Me, ‘You are My Servant, Israel, in Whom I will show My glory.’”

We begin our corrections from Abraham, from the property of Hesed, Isaac, the property of Gevura, and Jacob, the property of Tifferet. These stages are called the forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then we reach the level of the sons: Netzach, Hod, and Yesod. It’s impossible to reach the corrections of the sons without correcting the levels of the forefathers first, from which we reach a prayer that fills us with the powers to take care of the sons. Thus we convey all the attributes of bestowal from HGT to NHY.

This is the work on our connection. Therefore, it is said that a person reaches a place called the house of assembly (synagogue), where he tries to be incorporated in everyone’s desires and sees to what extent he cannot do it. Then he raises a prayer.

A prayer is correct if it comes from the desire to connect. All our desires, our deficiencies, and our requests for connection come together and demand connection. This is called a prayer of many, in reply to which comes the Light that Reforms from Above and connects us. Such a connection among everyone becomes a vessel that is called a house of assembly and from it we receive a response to our prayer.

A house of assembly (congress) is not a corporeal building or a place but rather the group in which our connection and unity is fulfilled. Jacob is the middle line, the central pillar. If we reach the middle line, it means that we pray in front of the pillar, which means that we ask for the correction from our connection. This is called being a prayer leader (the phase of Jacob) that is incorporated in everyone and prays that our connection be fulfilled and that we will be incorporated in one another, dissolve into one another and be as one.

Then this place becomes a house of assembly. The connection between us is called Shechina, and we are filled by the corrections of the Light that Reforms, and the Creator is revealed in our corrected desires. We shouldn’t try to escape anywhere, instead we only should clarify this state and fulfill it more and more.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: If a person is used to seeing us only on television or a computer screen, what would make him switch to an active phase and make him come to the February congress? After all, he feels good being at home, even if he agrees with what he is hearing.

Answer: Undoubtedly, it is more comfortable being at home.

In this case, everything depends on your free choice. First, do you have an opportunity to come to the congress? If everything was arranged from Above so that the answer is yes—if money, time, health, and other conditions that do not depend on you are granting you this possibility—then you are obliged to come.

It is a different matter if you were denied the ability to, let’s say, buy a ticket. Our friends are gathering from all over the world, including the most remote corners. For example, traveling from South America or Australia is very expensive. For some it is almost a prohibitive amount, yet they are coming.

This is where the freedom of choice comes in: If you were given an opportunity and you did not come, then you are simply rejecting the chance given to you by the Creator to come closer to Him, to arrive at a meeting with Him. After all, as it is written, “I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

If you are not granted this possibility, if insurmountable obstacles, which truly do not depend on you, are placed in front of you, then you will be given the same direct connection while being on the other side of the screen, but only on the condition that, for given reasons, it must be exactly this way.

One way or another, the analysis is entrusted to you. I already have received dozens of letters with similar questions and I almost never answer because this is a person’s free choice. He or she needs to make this decision on their own. Sometimes, there are unsolvable problems usually related to health. In that case, I take the responsibility upon myself and send a reply.

Essentially, we need to understand that this is where freedom of will lies. If you can come, then you must, and, if you are not able to—well, the Creator has arranged it this way so that, by staying at home, you will receive even more than from physical participation. Perhaps the external impression from what you would have seen in person would have been so negative that it would have flung you to the side. Perhaps it would have entered into an irreconcilable contradiction with your tastes, habits, and so on.

In any case, however, a person needs to make this decision on his own. He only needs to seize this opportunity because it is now that he can make a true breakthrough on the path.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The meal is a very important act. In the Talmud there is a story that tells how a group of students who lost their teacher held a dinner in his memory. And suddenly they discovered that they couldn’t arrange the meal, they weren’t able to say the blessing because they didn’t have enough strength for that; the strength comes from Above.

During the meal there is a power that is present because it is compatible to receive the Light that Reforms, the Light that gives life to the body and the soul. Thus the meals with Rabash took place in complete silence. It was forbidden to speak with each other. Each one had to focus within himself and talk within himself.

There was a very strict order that was entirely directed toward inner work. There was such tension in the air, that each person was forced to accompany each crumb that went into his mouth with an intention. If after the meal, he wanted to remember what he had eaten, he had great difficulty remembering. The food, as if, had no taste, because the taste was received from the state itself and not the food.

We are not able to carry out these conditions since both women and children are present at the meal, but still we need to try as much as is possible. Our society is special; it longs for a spiritual goal, so let’s begin to rise up a little.

I want to thank all the friends that are involved with the convention preparations and wish for us to resolve all the problems that appear on the way. You need to feel that you are great. In the meantime, it is not understood or felt who we really are. But when it is discovered, you will realize that you are in the center of the whole creation, and all of the previous generations of Kabbalists and  all of  humanity is looking at you in anticipation of what you are now doing: as you tilt the world to the side of the righteousness.
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From a Talk during the Meal 1/17/14

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Question: How can a person who has decided to participate in the convention for the first time overcome all the hardships and see the importance of the convention above all?

Answer: He should simply be with us, keep in touch through our TV channel or the Internet. Then in the time we have left things will get better.

There are no obstacles along the way to the convention that cannot be overcome. It’s when a person comes, when he is incorporated with us, that he will see how helpful it is in every aspect of life. By exerting himself in faith above reason, he will be able to solve many personal problems and will overcome many troubles.

I am not afraid to say this because it’s exactly what Kabbalists promise us in their writings. It isn’t what I know, but what they say.

A person who has only seen us on the screen for two years can dedicate two and a half days for the convention because he may have to wait for another year at best for the next convention; how can he not come? How can you miss something like this? What else has he got in life? How does he intend to fulfill his life?

It is said that the soul of a person who passes away is asked two questions: “Did you engage in the Torah?” “Did you expect salvation?” A soul is the vessel that receives the filling, which means the feeling of the Creator. “Did you engage in the Torah?” means did you want to draw the Light that Reforms? Were you drawn to where there should be love?

The Torah is the spice for the evil inclination, the means in which there is the Light that Reforms. This is exactly what the convention is meant for, so that together, everyone will draw the Light for the revelation of the Creator in the connection between us.

This is what a person’s soul is asked: “Did you draw the Light in order to resemble the Creator; in order to reveal Him?” This is called “Did you expect salvation?” This is the principle of “I have exerted and I have found.” The “finding” is the spiritual salvation.

When a person is behind the TV screen can he engage in this? How should he know how to do it? This is why he is invited to a special event in which everything is prepared for his arrival and the opportunity of engaging in the most important thing in his life is served to him on a platter. Then he would certainly have an answer to such a crucial question.

The angel inquiring the soul at the spiritual gate is a metaphor which explains to us how important it is not to waste our life in vain. Especially when you have such an opportunity, as it says: “There is a person who attains his world in one hour.” And you still have different calculations? If he had another opportunity now, he would have no calculations. So we should understand that it is here that the principle of the resistance of the forces of impurity is revealed.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: During the Arava convention, how can we feel as responsible for the friends as a submarine crew who won’t leave their friends and would rather drown with them if only half the crew can be saved?

Answer: They don’t feel that they are about to die since true death for them is being detached from their friends. They are brought to the feeling of an upper level of life and death, although it is a shell (Klipa), it is still in regards to the spiritual connection with friends.

You can reach such a state only with the Creator’s help. You need the Upper Light for that since otherwise you cannot even come close to such a state. If you organized a commando unit in a submarine, you would succeed. If you are going to organize a commando unit of mutual guarantee, you cannot do anything since you are given problems, descents, and interferences on purpose so that you will need the Creator.

Ultimately, we need to deal with Him. The general soul was shattered so that from this shattering you will get to know Him. We look at the broken shards and understand that we have to glue them together, but how can we put this puzzle together?

We try to connect these pieces in different ways, but nothing works and nothing will work! We don’t even know how to connect two parts: 1+1, since the Creator must be inside for these things to connect. This happens only when we reach an equivalence of form with Him in certain attributes.

But we don’t have these attributes. We don’t have the attribute of bestowal! This is why we cannot advance by even one step. We see that in the outside world people do organize commando units in which everyone is ready to sacrifice himself for the well-being of his friends. We cannot even think about this. After all, we need the Creator with us in every thought in this direction. This is the whole difference.

This is why the shell (Klipa) is so proud before holiness: “See what I can do! Everything is fine with me, everyone is happy, everything is nice, and what do you have?” After all, the egoistic connection is based on the mind, on confidence, while bestowal requires faith above reason. So a person who wants to reach true bestowal encounters great problems.

We can reach unity like in a submarine, but in order to do so, we need to reach a real demand for the Creator. This means that connecting is not the goal; the goal is to adhere to the Creator, and this final action must be in the initial thought. This is why we act and connect.

We need to check whether all our actions and connections between us are necessary for the revelation of the Creator, which should be the goal in every request, in every action. We can’t be confused and think that we need Him in order to connect. We actually need to connect in order to reveal Him and to delight Him.

We must properly build this formula each time, not forgetting that everything is for the sake of the Creator, and not for the sake of connection itself, neither is the raspberry ball, or the correction of humanity. We must constantly focus on the Creator.

So during the Arava convention we must constantly aim at the Creator, since this is the head of the Partzuf. We must constantly hold on to the same one thought, to the same intention, to the same plan that is aimed at the Creator.

Every question in the workshop is like a riddle that can be solved only when you build the sentence correctly, when the Creator is the goal, when everything that is aimed at the revelation of the Creator will reside among us. We need the Creator not so that he should glue us together; we want Him to glue us this way so that we will reveal Him and thus delight Him.

Everything should end with Him, in delighting Him, since the guest wants to delight the host. The Arava convention is the connection between us for His sake. Next there will be the integral education convention: The connection between us for the development of integral education. Then we will fulfill the integral connection in practice with the help of The Book of Zohar in the final great convention: The World Zohar Convention.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: Why does the “raspberry ball” disappear all the time and the only way to hold onto it and grow it is to go to the outer community?

Answer: Every activity in spirituality is an innovation. Even in our world it happens this way, but we simply don’t pay attention to this. Nothing returns as it was: All the time new clarifications and corrections are happening, a new discovery of evil and its correction for the good.

In spirituality there cannot be a stop, there cannot be a static state. Every state must be renewed all the time. This is like in love, like in relationships between people, where we must constantly take care of our relationships. If we want to keep them, we must constantly develop and grow them, opening new states.

In this world, until the end of correction, we receive a gift, a favor, help in the work: We reveal broken desires specifically granted by the Creator so that we will have material for renewal. Thanks to this we can renew relationships and develop our feelings each time.

But if there had been no shattering, what would we rely on to build our innovations and changes? And when we rise from physical states to spiritual states, then we see that spirituality is constant change. Without them, the spiritual world doesn’t exist. Even in our world, according to quantum physics, the electron cannot exist without movement.

If we stop it, it disappears. The entire universe of elementary particles, which rotate around their axes at tremendous speeds and move in orbits, is in movement and change. The entire micro world works at higher frequencies that approach the speed of light.

In our lives the speed of the changes also grows, and all technical apparatus, electronics, computers, everything, works at greater and greater speed. This says something about the number of changes that we are ready to include in a unit of time, a unit of influence. Everything depends on the speed, the frequency, with which changes happen.

Every Partzuf includes ten Sefirot, and each one of them includes another ten, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, there must be a very high frequency in every interval in order to include all these infinite changes of mutual integration of this into that and that into this, and so forth. The changes must be constant and at a very high velocity.

So when we reach the raspberry ball, we begin to feel that it’s impossible to hold. Here we begin to understand all of our psychology: If we don’t work on some kind of sensation, some kind of observation, all the time, then it disappears. It’s not revealed clearly in this life because we are becoming a unique compound of beast and human. And the beast in me exists without change, like all the rest of the beasts. And if my head is only involved with taking care of my beast, then I feel that everything is completely okay with me.

But if I begin to take care of the human in me with my mind, then I will need all the changes there. Then I constantly, incessantly,will need to decide what is more important for me, the beast in me or the human? Is the man riding the donkey or the donkey riding the man; who is carrying whom?
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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Question: I can imagine the great responsibility toward the friends in a sinking submarine. How can I feel this anxiety and this tension during the workshops when there isn’t such drama going on around us?

Answer: Listen, no one is asking you to do any tricks like a magician and pull a rabbit out of a hat. There is no need to perform any tricks, but simply try to tie your demand, your deficiency, with the upper force, and that’s all. Try to demand, to ask for anything. The moment you lack something for your spiritual advancement, turn to the Creator immediately with any request that you have. If you manage to tie it correctly to the Creator, you will have no problems.

Your work is to be the link, the adaptor, between the deficiencies and the source. No one is asking you to be the source of energy and not even to be the user of this energy, which means doing something by yourself. Your work is passive: simply to nag and keep on asking for what you want from the Creator. However, you should ask wisely. You should clarify accurately what it is that you exactly want, and then ask for it. You should understand that the Creator arranges difficulties for you precisely so that you should nag Him and, by that, learn from Him, and thus advance.

The problem is that you are leaving the Creator. Baal HaSulam says that the greatest sin a person can commit in this world is to forget the Creator and to be detached from Him. So, don’t be detached and keep nagging Him with your requests. That’s the only thing you are required to do.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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We must constantly be concerned with the unity that is attained, the “raspberry ball.” For a moment, we are able to hold our own, looking for ways to change, to renew our unity. But this is possible only for a brief moment that is enough in order to understand that we must have an external factor here. This external factor is the entirety of humanity. If we want to keep the raspberry ball, our connection with the Creator, we must extend outside to the external world.

There is a story that the Baal Shem Tov got this answer from Above to the question, “When will the Messiah come?”: “When your teaching spreads outward.” In other words, our entire mission is to hold our connection with the Creator and we require outsiders, not in order to hold and keep the raspberry ball, our unity, but we need this raspberry ball and ourselves in order to serve all people. That is, we don’t use the outer community in order to hold onto the raspberry ball; rather, we hold onto the raspberry ball and ourselves in order to serve the people.

These are very important observations. The words seem simple, understandable, and quite close, yet in fact, this is not so simple. That is how we gradually begin to see the integrality, the global interface, the connections, the unity, the Arvut (mutual guarantee) that dwells in all of nature.

We discover that all of the levels of the physical world: the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate, which we didn’t take into account before, are in fact included in one indivisible whole. The entire universe, the entire perceived reality, our entire inner world, and our contact with the Creator are connected in one system. That is how we reach an understanding of the integral world.

In this fourth stage of the path, we are beginning to clarify and determine how much we need the general public, that without it we cannot satisfy the Creator, and how much the Creator doesn’t want us but specifically that outer circle of the general public, all of humanity. That is how we attain our function and our mission. We must disappear; this is the role of the “kingdom of priests”; we don’t exist on our own; rather, we serve the general public, all of humanity, and the Creator. And in this we see our exalted role. We have no part in this or in that; rather, we only connect between them like a conduit. And this is good, for with this we truly can be closest to the nature of the Creator.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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The moment we attain the first point of unity and the first point of adherence, then already in the next moment we feel our powerlessness and despair. Indeed, it appears that we are a just a drop of semen.

This entire raspberry ball, our cherished goal, our lofty dream, is in fact only one specific point. This means that we have brought this entire world to one initial point, to the first level of the spiritual ladder.

So what else do we do with this one small point? We need to grow it, but with what, because we have already done everything that was possible in the connection between us. And now the next stage is presented before us, the fourth stage of advancement within which all of humanity is gradually included, circle after circle.

We have now reached the state of a “nation of priests.” Each one of us has already played his part as a “first priest” (Cohen) for the friends; that is, a “priest” symbolizes that he has nothing of his own and has no thought of himself. For his entire inheritance is the Creator. The priests have no inheritance and no property, but only work in the Holy Temple. This Holy Temple is the level of Bina, meaning everything is for the sake of bestowal.

That is how we begin to understand the significance of the rest of humanity. Up until now, perhaps we thought that besides the group we don’t need anything. But now we begin to understand that if we don’t join and include within us all of their external deficiencies, then we won’t have anything with which to turn to the Creator. As it’s written: “For you are the smallest of all nations”; in other words, we have no more deficiencies. And therefore it says “smallest,” for this refers to the quality and not the quantity. Our desires are very small.

It follows that we need to increase the significance of the goal relative to all of humanity, to begin working with the public. For this we must study the history of mankind: clarify why we have gone through this entire way. Understand that the goal of creation includes within it each and every person and even the nature of the still, vegetative, and the animate. But the moment that we correct the relationships between people, with this we also correct the entire world of the still, vegetative, and the animate, the whole environment, and the climate. We only need to begin to work with humanity correctly.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/7/14, Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”

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