Question: In The Book of Zohar, “The Night of the Bride,” we read about how the bride (Divinity) decorates herself before the meeting with the groom (The Creator). What jewels have we prepared for ourselves in the group in order to decorate ourselves before the coming convention?

Answer: The bride’s decoration is the wedding crown, Keter. It is the upper Sefira that has nothing to do with the other Sefirot, and is actually their source. The term Keter (crown) means bestowal and it has no concrete form and no attributes. This is all that we should know about bestowal, and everything else are expressions of the Sefira of Keter that Malchut receives.

A crown is bestowal without a definite form. It is actually what we should yearn for, as it says: “a crown on the righteous’ head.” A righteous is the Sefira of Yesod (basis), that connects the other Sefirot in it. If we want to connect, we feel the need for a crown on the righteous’ head, on his thoughts, his desires, and his plans. This is where the the crown should be and where it is.

A righteous, the Sefira of Yesod is the place of coupling with the Light. After the second restriction there is no room for coupling in Malchut itself, but only in Yesod. (This is because the children of Israel didn’t want the coupling in the Sefira of Yesod, in Joseph, and so they went down to Egypt). The righteous are those who gather in them all the discernments that they can work with, except for Malchut. All these discernments connect in Yesod. Malchut that ascends to Bina is called Yesod.

All our work is to be incorporated in every way possible in the group, with all our heart. Before the convention I prepare to totally annul myself, which means to feel that my motions are together with everyone else, with all the thoughts and the desires.

I should remember that I cannot turn to the Creator with a personal prayer! A person who raises a personal prayer destroys his soul. He actually destroys everything even if he wants to bring contentment to the Creator. So the incorporation in the group precedes every other action. This is called Yesod since it is the basis for the work and because it is the Sefira of Yesod that we work with instead of Malchut.
[111789]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/08/13, The Zohar

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When everyone annuls his ego and tries to connect to the others, it means that everyone is trying to be incorporated in one another. Of course, we discover on the way that it is impossible to be incorporated and attain connection by ourselves, and then a prayer is born in us.

Everyone must reach a certain degree of bestowal upon others and be incorporated in them, but eventually, everyone must reach the level of “Jacob” that is called the middle line. Thanks to our collective efforts, we attain our root, the network that connects us all. This is called wanting to bestow upon Malchut from Yesod.

When we reach this state, we raise MAN, a prayer, so that the Surrounding Light will connect us correctly. Then, under the influence of Yesod on Malchut, we attain Keter, and then the Creator is revealed in our vessels.

In this process, we connect into one Sefira of Yesod from all the different Sefirot that represent each of us as everyone annuls himself. Through the general annulment, we reach Malchut and bestow upon it, and by that become a vessel for receiving the Light of Keter, which means that we reach the attainment of the level of Keter.

This process includes all of reality until the end of correction, but our mission now is for each of us to try to ascend above himself and be incorporated in others. By that, we are incorporated in the collective effort. This should be our preparation now before the convention. In this collective effort, we discover the prayer of many in which everyone is aware, understands, and feels the effort of the friends who want to connect, and I want to help them.

I feel what a great desire they have to connect in order to bestow upon the Creator. Therefore, as it is written, “For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say: ‘Peace be within thee.’” This means that I ask for the friends so that they will reach the corrected vessel in which they will be able to bestow upon the Creator.
[111539]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/04/13, Writings of Rabash

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Even if we know that there is only one force that acts in our lives, in spite of all this, if we see something we don’t like, experiencing something undesirable, we immediately forget that our vision, our thoughts, our desires, and our emotions are managed and shaped by the Creator. On the contrary, we think we are independent.

Some feeling, action, or thought that is exceptional and does not meet my expectations is sufficient for me to no longer be ready to link the event to the Creator. I can maintain the connection with Him only if I think well of Him, and conversely, the moment that I think ill of Him, this separates us; so I think about another force and attribute this to other people, to myself, to nature, but not to the one and only Source.

However, later I again return to thinking about the only power that acts within everything. This is how we learn to connect all states and everything to the Creator. He awakens various unpleasant states within us so that, despite or above the separation, we connect ourselves to Him so that we will not be dependent on our feelings, our understanding, but will want to connect to His emotion and power.

A person has no other correction, but to attribute all moments through which he now passes and in the future directly to the Creator. In this way, he justifies the creation because all worlds and all times were created only to give form within him to a feeling of the Creator. Everything is designed only to direct us toward discovery of the Creator.

We suppose that the present reality conceals the Creator from us. However, this is not so, for if we relate correctly to all that is happening, instead of a reality that conceals, we see a reality that reveals. Everything depends specifically on our relationship to this. It is precisely through the help of the powers of repulsion that we can advance.

Accordingly, the wisdom of Kabbalah divides people into the “wicked” and the “righteous.” Wherever the wicked one rejects, there the righteous one advances because he wants to justify that everything that happens to him is done for his advancement.

The main goal of a person is to reach the feeling of the reality of the Creator who fills everything, the single force that acts in the whole system, in the entire reality. It is up to a person to invest all his energy in this without involvement in anything else, without being confused by other goals.

To feel the Creator means to acquire the force of bestowal. So, it is not worthwhile to think about anything else because the reward for all of our efforts throughout life is that at every moment in this reality we will be privileged to be with the power of bestowal through which we begin to understand and feel the Creator. We see Him as the bestower.

In order for a person to approach this question correctly, he doesn’t exist alone. Instead, he is found within the framework of social systems that will help him. It is no accident that, throughout history, people gathered in villages, cities, and nations; and today are mixed in certain social units.

However, there exists one type of connection that we must build artificially. Unlike the other forms, it is not derived from the natural evolutionary process, yet without it, advancement is impossible. This is speaking of a unique society or group that, specifically within it, we need to see the changes through which we pass on the way to the Creator.

In addition to this, Rabash writes that, even though I see the faces of people around me, I must believe that, behind them, stands the Creator who does all these actions, compelling them to do what I am seeing. Someone smiles, cries, screams at me or laughs at me; it is not important. It is up to me to see the Creator in all this, presenting Himself to me in this form. In normal life, through the environment, I must penetrate through them to the source that runs them.

The Creator does everything, writes Rabash, but the person judges according to what his eyes see, according to behavior, according to faces, according to the laws of nature, and so on, and not according to his belief.

Being among billions of people, I must understand that everything that is happening, from the world news to the smallest events around me, are a presentation of the Creator toward me. That is what I need to understand and accept, to try to discover the good will behind the “curtains,” to bring me closer to Him, to discover Him in spite of all this “theater.”

Rabash continues and says that someone who sees the face of his friend is, in fact, seeing the Creator. Outside his body, only the Creator exists. So, accordingly, the person is a true created being.

Specifically, I am the created being and everything else is a part of the Creator who wants me to feel detached from His reality through this. However, besides me, only He fills everything. In this form, I see before me the Creator, the upper Light, and all the forms that He receives are drawn by my ego, dividing Him into parts with various shapes and sizes. In the end, they portray before me the various parts of nature: the still, the vegetative, the animate, or humans.

Other than this, the Creator fills everything, and, therefore, if I am lying to a friend, I am lying to the Creator. If I hurt a friend, I hurt the Creator. If I relate to the friends substantively, I can advance quickly to a correct comprehension. The entire world will be seen by me as whole, perfect and subject to the one higher guidance, that everything is directed toward bringing me to the Root.

If it is so, then there aren’t really any other people in the entire reality. There is only me and the Creator. All the other components act in the capacity of a transition link, a “buffer,” an adapter between us.

Therefore, Baal HaSulam writes that, before every action, I must say to myself that I am acting independently and success depends on me, and after the deed, I must realize and account for what happened. I must try to understand that everything was constructed from the start by the Creator. The result was known from the start. Therefore, it is up to me to accept everything wholeheartedly, for it was established this way from the start.

However, it is forbidden to declare that everything was known from the start and that there is no need to do anything. If we accept the conduct of the Creator without carrying out actions only because it is possible to attribute them to Him, then we don’t change. So, we see the same result in a different form, for if I am not changed, I sit with my hands folded or do something without connection to my independence and follow the “redirect” of the Creator, following, then I advance through suffering and blows.

However, if on the background of the conduct of the Creator, I dedicate time to acting on my own, and after that, I bring all that back to the “supreme authority,” to the Creator, if I act in order to equalize my participation to His participation, then in this way, I am changed. In a leap, I raise myself to a new level by the way of “I will hasten it.”

This is the entire difference. The world endures much suffering because it wants to change something on its own. The change is necessary, but the other half is lacking, and this is what we want to explain to humanity.
[107339]
From the Convention in New Jersey 5/11/13, Lesson 3

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Question: How do I measure my readiness for the St. Petersburg convention?

Answer: According to the level of sufferings that you feel. After all, I suffer when I lack something important.

I see a fancy car in a store window, a shiny Rolls Royce that costs a million dollars, the type of car that attracts everyone’s attention on the street and stops the traffic. It is in front of me, I am captivated by it, and I feel that my life is meaningless without it. I ask people to help me raise a million dollars. I beg them to help me as much as they can…

I don’t sleep at nights, cannot eat, drink, or relax because of the image of the shiny vehicle; “I would rather die than live without the “Rolls Royce.” I suffer desperately when I see my dream car through the window that separates us.

So what should I do? Break the window? Start a revolution and split up everyone’s property? Rob a bank? I look for different solutions so I can purchase what I lack. It is because I have a strong feeling that this is the only thing that I lack.

It is according to such sorrow that we measure our preparation for the convention, but in our case it is not enough. I also need a point in the heart, the spark in the ego in relation to which I measure the goal that the friends and I are yearning for. The spark illuminates the sublime and wonderful goal and although I really long for it, I don’t want to blur or to erase it. On the contrary, I am sure that it will be mine and that I will attain it. Therefore, I am full of joy along with the feeling of sorrow.

The combination of sorrow and joy is the middle line which I have to form. So I measure my preparation according to the level of sorrow that I feel as a result of not having attained what I want. I check the sorrow that I feel in my heart, in my ego, from the point in the heart.

So before the St. Petersburg convention we put a great emphasis not on the greatness of the goal, but on the preparation that determines the reward. You will receive exactly what you have prepared.

In ordinary life we bring the vessel to a source of water and fill it. In spirituality it is different; there you receive exactly what you have prepared. Your vessel becomes the filling and you don’t ask for anything else. The yearning, the deficiency, the longing for the goal is what fills you. There aren’t any changes on the outside and nothing enters you; the deficiency becomes the reward. The preparation formats the deficiency in such a way that it becomes the filling.

What are these tricks? An empty vessel in return for our efforts?

No, it isn’t empty any more, it is actually full… this is bestowal.

Baal HaSulam speaks about that in Letter No. 19: “During the preparation, the beauty and grace appear and the essence of perfection that one yearns and longs for. However, at the time of correction, when ‘the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord,’ then, ‘I shall see an opposite world,’ because only fear and longing are the essence of the desired perfection. Then one feels that during the time of preparation, one was lying to oneself.”
[111731]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/13, “They Shall All Know Me From the Least of Them to the Greatest of Them”

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Question: Why did you leave us before the convention and go on vacation for three days?

Answer:  1. Because I have lost my voice, and I’m unable to speak.

2.  Because I felt that this was necessary, and you do not argue with the Teacher, but accept what he says as the truth.

3. Because everywhere before an exam, a student is given time for his own homework and preparation.

4. Because the entire success depends not on me, but only on you, your preparation and solidarity.
[111830]

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From the book The Light and the Sun: Most important in the gathering is that all are unified together and ask only for one thing—to find the Creator. And may everyone listen to his friend, and be small in his own eyes, and desire to hear something from the friend—how to serve the Creator and how to find the Creator.

It is necessary to make a distinction: There is I, there is the goal, the Creator, and there is a means of achieving it, our gathering, our unity. There is nothing else. Consequently, the means is as important as the goal because it leads me to the goal.

Everything depends on the realization of the importance of the goal. That is why we must constantly talk and think about it, raise it in our eyes. The realization of the importance of the goal is where it is revealed how much I can invest into it, to what extent we can work against our egoism.

The question is where my expectations are, where my eyes are turned: upwards or downwards? Towards the Good that Does Good or towards evil? Where am I heading? Everything depends on the realization of the importance of the goal that I take from the group.

And the problem is that this importance is not yet “spread” among the friends. The situation has undoubtedly improved, but the air between us is not “ringing” yet, not “sparkling,” not “charging” me….

I have to help the group, sparing no efforts, and when I am not able, I will be “nourished” by it.
[111777]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/5/13, “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself,” Lesson 3

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Comment: In preparation for the convention in St. Petersburg, we asked all the women to create a common prayer for the men.

Answer: To send a letter to the men is a good idea, but you should not link with them your hopes to succeed if you cannot bring yourselves to match the spiritual quality of bestowal. It is impossible to convey the spiritual property from one to another; even from the husband to the wife, who are considered as one body, because in order to be really one body in spirituality, they need an internal integration into each other. The woman is a person, not an addition to the man!
[111638]
From the Workshop for Women, 7/5/2013

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Question: How can we prepare ourselves for the convention in St. Petersburg to a new state so it really comes? How do we prepare now, while there is still time?

Answer: The thing is there is no time. Preparation is the condition in which the main thing is to happen right now. Preparation means that I am acting just in this moment, and if I assign some future date or a future state for myself, it is only to spur my “donkey.”

Preparation is everything. And the results do not necessarily show up on the appointed day, they can come at any moment and even before. So let them come, let it happen sooner. Why do we need a convention if we can already reach the “first date,” the revelation of the Creator? Why should it happen on a fixed day? Let Him be revealed now and we will finish the current stage.

Are we going to St. Petersburg because the Creator lives there? No, if we are preparing properly, we want to get the desire now and we are not waiting for any date. What are we to do with the calendar and geography? Unity is what is most important. If I want to be a giver, there is no tomorrow, only now.
[111714]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/13, “They Shall All Know Me from the Least of Them to the Greatest of Them”

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Question: It is written “You shall love your friend as yourself.” Who is “your friend” for a person who has the point in the heart?

Answer: In general, we give the name of “your friend” to each person in the world who was a stranger to us and becomes close, your friend.

For a person with the point in the heart according to the hierarchy, “your friends” are those people who are with him on the path, friends in the group. We can be open with them, we can be involved in connection and unity, in mutual support, to realize the system of spiritual connection. We don’t find ourselves in this group by accident, we belong to one inner upper system, so we come together. Thus, first and foremost, we need to create between us conditions like “love for others.”

“Love for the other” is determined according to this: I begin to feel the desire of my friend, his needs above my own.

The concept,  “Love your friend like yourself” means higher than yourself, much more than yourself. Today, I love myself more than the whole world. This means, also in regard to my friends, that I need to relate in this way, that they will be more important to me than anyone. It is acquiring the attribute of bestowal when I grasp their greatest desire—reaching the goal, revelation of the upper system—as my personal desire and help them in that. If, for me, the spirituality of my friends is higher than mine, then at that moment, I reach revelation.

We mean by love, not what is thought of usually as love in this world, but specifically helping those who are with us on the path so that they will reach their goal. Love is called filling the desire of the other.
[111114]
From the Preparation for the Convention in Krasnoyarsk 6/13/13

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Question: Your comment during the morning lesson upturned all our plans! So how can we stay in groups during the convention?

Answer: All these conditions are for the 1%, not for the 99%:

1. Groups are divided into men’s and women’s parts and isolated from each other. Due to man’s weaknesses, women distract men from the goal. It is better for the men to spend all three days together. You need to prepare everything in advance. Usually, the men gather at their center. Their older sons from the age of 13 who have gone through the preparation can be with them.

2. Women can gather in homes or in a separate room in the center; they can come and go (women are freed from the actions that depend on time).

3. Don’t invite strangers and even former students who have not participated in the preparation for this convention. We have studied that preparation is most important!

4. Those who are engaged in the preparation should feel what it means to be in a collective intention and what factors may become a hindrance to success, which we all hope for.

Good luck to us all,
Dr. Michael Laitman
[111694]

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