A very strong congress has just ended; we feel tired, indifferent, sleepy, as if a heavy cloud embraces us and converts us into pessimistic elderly people.

The Creator took our egoistic desire away, the fuel that pulled us ahead. Before, we were burning with desire; we strove to get spiritual rewards and were ready to fight to attain spirituality. Each one of us considered himself a hero, although we felt like “supermen” only because our egoism was quite “hot” and was pushing us towards new achievements.

The Creator wants to help us; thus, He takes our egoism away so that we replace it by another power. Now, instead of being pushed from behind, we get inspired by the greatness of the goal and are hauled forward by it.

Now, we really have an opportunity to move ahead, but instead we complain that we do not have any energy or desire any more. Do you remember how “hot” and huge your desire was? However, it was not yours; it was given to you from Above. You were simply pushed from Above, and as a result brought to the group of Kabbalists.

At this time, your desire disappeared and you think that it’s better to leave the group and drop Kabbalah since it doesn’t attract you any longer. Do you really think that if it doesn’t appeal to you any more, it means that there is something wrong with Kabbalah? Everybody judges to the extent of their own corruptness. It’s obvious that without motivation one cannot advance. Even machines cannot work without fuel.

One should turn to the group, the books, and the study; he should demand help from them! Plead to the Creator!

If you have no power for this kind of appeal, it means that you experience deficiency of the general force, mutual guarantee. If there are friends of yours who lost their “life-force,” you should at least cry for them; it’s as if you are at their funeral; mourn over the wonderful friends that you lost! Look at the heavy tombstones that lie on their chests, that is, the stony hearts that they cannot rid themselves of.

At some point they were shining with a desire, but now we can only cry for them. Soon, you yourself will descend into the same pit. However, if we are ready to help each other before it happens, we’ll be able to rise from any kind of downfall. Not only will we be able to overcome our indifference, we will cope with genuine hatred should it arise among us.

Only the power of the group can initiate a desire out of “thin air.” At this time, we don’t have this kind of desire, nor can it emerge from anywhere. However, we have to “ignite” it artificially, as if we are starting a new business and advertise our new goods. It should become our common spiritual business; as a result, it will trigger such a strong need in us that we will simply be “burning” with desire. Underneath this desire, there can be nothing at all!

People are waiting all night long at the doorsteps of the stores to buy a 5th generation iPhone. Learn how to advertise your “goods” by escalating artificial needs. After all, the goal that we pursue also seems “artificial” to our egoism.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/24/12, The Study of the Ten Sefirot

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All of reality is in a person. He thinks that he exists and that besides him there is a huge universe, but this picture is depicted only in his shattered vessel.

Once there was one vessel and in it a person felt one world, one reality, himself, and nothing but that. The Creator, which means the force that revives him, was also inside him. On the outside there was nothing and there was no such concept as “outside myself.” This is the correct perception, which we call “Malchut of Ein Sof (Infinity)”; everything is inside me and nothing is divided by boundaries, there is no boundary, it is infinite.

Then the vessel was broken into two parts. Now in order to attain Ein Sof and to acquire the true, deep perception of the upper dimension, there is only one thing we can do—go through infinite states of preparation, which is what we are doing now.

The world of Ein Sof divided into two parts: “I” and “outside myself,” and all my work is in connecting the two parts. This is why there is the condition of “love thy friend as thyself,” which I have to keep so that I will attach the external part to the internal part that I naturally feel as mine. If I could do that, I would return to Ein Sof.

Loving what is outside myself just as I love myself egoistically means to bestow, and that is the love of others. These words confuse us, but in fact it is about understanding that just as I love myself, I should understand that everything outside me is mine. It only seems to me that the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature and also people exist on the outside. I even discover the upper force internally, as it says, “You shall not have a foreign God.” Everything is inside me.

Baal HaSulam explains this in the “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” saying that there is a kind of “camera” in our consciousness, which depicts the outside world to us. This means that some of my desires are the inner feeling of my “self” that is divided into the “root,” “soul” and “body,” while the other part is the external picture that is divided into a “garment” and “temple.” According to another terminology, I divide myself into “mind,” “bones,” “tendons,” “flesh”, and “skin” and the external world into the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking nature.

There are different sayings regarding the perception of reality used by Kabbalists, such as: “Don’t do onto others what is hated by you,” “Love thy friend as thyself,” “unite in a group,” “you have whom to unite with,” “help them and they will help you,” since eventually it helps a person acquire the right attitude and to return to what he was before the shattering of the vessels. There, there are no “I” and “others”; there this whole world disappears; there we don’t feel the bodies, but only parts of the individual souls that connect more closely until they merge into one soul.

Baal HaSulam explains that in fact there is only one soul, which means the world of Ein Sof, one desire that is full of one force. It is the only thing that exists.

But by our exertion and by attainting this perception, we begin to feel what is happening in the world of Ein Sof in depth; we attain all its ten Sefirot with all the Lights of NRNHY. After attaining the initial state of a created being, through the second state, through the shattering, we arrive at a third state. Then we attain the root and all of reality and become like it, understanding and feeling like it, equal to it in every way.

Actually the point isn’t even in the equality; there are no words in our language to express this state. We are simply in it: There is no “I” that attains “Him,” that is somewhere on the outside. I am Him. This is called adhesion.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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Question: This convention seems to have opened a new door for us and everything that we do seems tasteless from here, as if we have lost all its previous juiciness.

Answer: So why haven’t you asked for it?! You are constantly saying: “We! We!” so why didn’t you all ask together?!

Question: I feel that this is a new state in which I still don’t know how to ask. It is as if we’ve touched something, but we haven’t processed it enough yet so that we can actually fulfill it.

Answer: You are not asked to put your request in nice elaborate words. A father understands a simple cry.

Question: So why haven’t we asked?

Answer: Because you cannot unite and support one another. There are still different calculations that control you: shame, lack of readiness; in short, there is no true decisiveness yet, when you simply break through without any calculations.

Question: Where does the shame that doesn’t let me break through come from? We speak so much about closeness and unity, but I know that there are still locks in my heart, limitations that dictate what is allowed and what is forbidden.

Answer: It is because the Creator is still far from you; at the moment you don’t feel that He is close. You have to try harder to imagine Him in the form of the unity of the group, which is actually what we have started this week. The “Creator” is the essence of the outcome of our unity. This is what we have to pray for and turn to.

In any case, we need an outcry, a prayer, a request that is free of any calculations. If you cannot reach that it means that you are still far from the Creator or that the Creator is far from you.

But all the complaints are also justified and helpful. The more you complain the better. They will lead to the right and accurate calculation.

I think that this time we’ve taken a big step forward. It isn’t just a step; we’ve actually stepped inside and delved into clarifications, opening our hearts wide, although we haven’t scraped off its peel with an “iron brush.” It is indeed a good clarification: We have begun to sense, to feel, where this unity actually is, how we discover the AHP of the upper, a higher level, how we identify it, how do we all adhere to it so that it will raise us, and what is the relationship we have with it.

We’ve been through many things that relate to connection and unity, and although they seem very sublime, distant, and abstract, they will gradually come together in our feeling. Then it will be easier for us to turn to them and to fulfill them.

I think that this convention is very deep and has brought us the deepest most intensive clarification. It is meant for people who are actually only two steps away from entering spirituality. I am very happy that thanks to the feeling in the group here and throughout the world I can speak in a way I never have before.

Question: What should the right request be?

Answer: “Open the gate for us!”

It is at the time you feel that all the roads are blocked, that all the gates are locked, that you cry out. This is the 50^th gate, the desirable state we spoke about and read so much about. Now you are feeling it in practice, and only the collective prayer is missing, the pressure, the persistence. Try, make an effort, it will come…

I am very happy about the states we have been through.
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From the Convention of Unity, Day Two 9/21/12, Lesson 4 

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Italy Convention, Day Two, Workshop 3

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It is very important to take part in the conventions and meetings that we hold since this attack really advances a person and allows him to get closer and to connect to others.

There are people who even find it very hard to sit among others and they count the hours until all this is finally over and they will be able to go home. But it is important to feel even such situations deeply, since it is a very good way to learn. We should only try not to get stuck in this state for a long time and to move forward as quickly as possible. Everything is determined according to how you subdue yourself before the environment.

We shouldn’t think that we are advancing only during these attacks when we are under the influence of the powerful environment, subduing ourselves before it, since we have no choice. It is possible to advance even faster during the usual daily lesson. In every lesson a very strong Light is revealed to us, even stronger than during the convention.

The whole point is that during the lesson we cannot hold on to the same sharpness of the senses and devotion in the same intensity. During the congresses the special actions, the special conditions, and the feeling of the attack, influence us. During the daily lesson it is a continuous war.

We have to build up power during the convention, the power we have attained during the attack, but later we have to fulfill it day by day and to understand that these are the true conditions of the war. During the lesson we are in a daily war, until we finally reach the true prayer.

I have to constantly examine myself and constantly keep the three conditions of the prayer. There is nothing but a prayer, a request, which includes the feeling of how great the Creator is, a self-check of whether I did everything possible, and of whether I am really devoted to the goal with all my soul and value it more than life itself. In order to do that I must constantly examine myself since everything that is connected is the essence of my attitude to the upper, to the higher level, to the unified system.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Shamati #209

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Question: How can we use the lesson in order to tighten the connection between us? How can we enter the channel that you open and hold one another?

Answer: We have to feel that we are mutually connected to one another. If you don’t feel that we are connected in our hearts a bit more today than we were two days ago, then you haven’t attained anything at the convention. This is the index for the success of the convention. We feel the connection a bit more, the warmth and the closeness among us; we have been through a certain process, we have experienced a certain event that connected us and has created a common understanding, feeling, action, power, investment, and general knowledge of what we had. All this has built a connection and now the feeling of connection has to develop further.

We have to feel this especially during the lessons, since during the lesson we actually develop our connections more deeply, and so I have to keep the way it feels inside me and thus to advance. Step by step, from one lesson to another, from day to day, I have to feel, just as I do now after having grown a bit closer to one another after the convention.

It isn’t felt in the mind and not in the heart, but in the feeling of connection, as we all become closer to one another. A few more such efforts and we will begin to feel different phenomena among us—that something is beginning to move, to shake inside, and this is already the spiritual embryo.

So we should want all our desires and thoughts to be around that and they will be part of our mutual connection. This is called the “center of the group,” the collective feeling that is built by similar actions.

It is impossible to hold conventions everyday; it isn’t good; we would immediately feel that it is useless. But we have to renew our connections during the morning lesson. Of course, there will still be the daily problems, difficulties, and the hardening of the heart as usual. But this is what we have to do: We have to check daily and assess the point of our connection and with it advance forward.

I think that today it should be clearer to everyone than it was before.

Question: Is the morning lesson a group work?

Answer: Yes. We know this from Rabbi Shimon’s students who also came to the morning lesson and discovered the mutual connection between them and wrote about it in The Book of Zohar. First they felt the evil among them, the hatred, a burning fire among them; they couldn’t look at one another or connect to one another. Then they overcame that state and attained the connection: love, unity, mutuality, and described these levels in their book. This is how The Book of Zohar was created.

There is nothing more than that; only the closeness among people when we clarify and discover among us the levels and the types of the connection. This is the spiritual world. If instead of receiving, instead of the desire to gain from one another, we reach bestowal, when everyone wants to give to others, then the corporeal world changes into the spiritual world and there we find the transcendental reality.

We should understand that only in this direction will we discover the sources and understand as described by the Kabbalists.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/23/12, Questions and Answers 

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Convention of Unity, Day Three, Lesson 5

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Convention of Unity, Day Two, Lesson 4

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Our convention begins, and we are busy only with connecting, only with unity. From this moment until the end of the convention, we will not remember anything else and will not speak one word about the external world; we are focusing only on ourselves and on our friends wherever they are.

Don’t speak and don’t think about what is going on in the world. After all, if a person corrects himself by connection, the worlds of BYA will be balanced and the balanced forces will dwell in all of nature. If we, Bnei Baruch correct ourselves, the affluence will certainly flow from us to everyone; it will flow to the channels that connect us with the whole world.

Baal HaSulam writes about it in the Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot, Item 4: When the Children of Israel are complemented with the complete knowledge, the fountains of intelligence and knowledge shall flow beyond the boundaries of Israel and water all the nations of the world.

Thus we too have to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah among the nations of the world, but we have to perform the correction, not they. During the convention we forget everything: home, dissemination, and the world. There is nothing but the place where we are, together with our friends who are connected to us from all over the world. We are together in one heart. We are totally disconnected from the external world, entering more deeply inside.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/20/12, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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