Question: I am taking the International Kabbalah Academy course online. How important is it for virtual students to come to the convention in Kharkov? Can we virtually participate in it as we do in our lessons?

Answer: No way! You will never replace the direct interaction. You can keep taking the Kabbalah Academy online courses and gain knowledge. However, without real unity it’s impossible to unite and connect in order to sense the Creator in our connection. After all, the revelation of the Creator is our main problem. This is precisely the reason for our existence, for the existence of this entire world, and for our courses.
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From the Virtual Lesson 7/8/12, “Kharkov 2012”

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Question: How important is for everyone who arrives at the Kharkov Convention to participate in the workshops?

Answer: Everyone without exception must participate! Workshops are more important than lectures! The workshops are the spiritual practice through which a person enters with the help of the group, within it, like in a means of transportation into the spiritual world. He will not arrive anywhere without the workshops. Nowhere! It’s a pity to come to the convention and not participate in the workshop; it just will not work.
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From a Virtual Lesson on Fundamentals of Kabbalah: “Harkov 2012″ 7/8/12

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Question: What should happen at the convention in Kharkov, Ukraine so that it really becomes our next stage?

Answer: As it is known, there is force in quality and force in quantity.

When we gathered at the convention in the North of Israel, we tried to create this qualitative force, and we succeeded.

It was indeed a very powerful “ball” by intensity, force, and people’s abilities. There were people who study with us seriously and perform minimal, but important conditions necessary to advance towards unity.

The Kharkov convention is intended as a general convention of the entire Russian-speaking area. Of course, our friends from Europe will also arrive, but in general, there will be representatives of Russia and nearby countries, the former Soviet Union. So, unlike the convention in the North of Israel, this convention is for a fairly wide range of participants.

But the combination of that concentration of quality that has been achieved in the North of Israel with the quantity that we hope to reach in Kharkov should give significant results and the next degree.
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From the Virtual Lesson 7/8/12, “Fundamentals of Kabbalah”

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Question: If I live in the USA and 100 miles away from a Bnei Baruch group study center and cannot be there every day or even two to three times a week, am I your student, a member of the group, a member of the leading group, and can I come to the unity convention in the North of Israel?

Answer: You must be virtually in the group of those like you, study with them virtually, send Maaser to Bnei Baruch America Treasurer Beth Shillington via the Education Center website, take part in dissemination physically or virtually; in this case, you are my student and a member of your group. If in addition to this, you regularly attend the lessons and meeting of friends, you will be considered a member of the leading group.
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Question: What should be the connection or continuity between the lesson and the workshop following it at the convention in Kharkov? Will it follow the regular scheme or not?

Answer: This depends on the people there.

On one hand, we want people to receive certain information and knowledge at the lesson. However, a workshop is usually not about knowledge, but about feelings. Therefore, we should unite knowledge and feelings in a way where they will mutually complement one another.

But in principle, everything depends on the audience. That is why I would like to receive questions, suggestions, and wishes from our friends. This will enable me to understand what proportion of knowledge, perception, and feeling to have and to what extent people in Russia today perceive information through the heart and the mind.

When holding a convention in Europe, for example, I have to speak through the mind in a rather cool manner. But gradually people get so involved that by the end of the convention I can already speak in a way that aims them precisely at unification and everything unfolds wonderfully.

I wonder how much time we will need at the Kharkov Convention to enter a mutual sensation, to create a common field? In this common field we will feel its center, its warmth, its mutuality, the emergence of new waves in it, in which we will already begin to feel something higher than our psychology. We will feel our unification, our sensations—that which exists independently of us and is not only between us but above us.

This is the state to which I would like to bring the participants so they will begin to clearly feel that when people interact correctly, a special energetic, informational, governing field emerges, and if a person tries to remain in it, it begins to communicate with him from the other side. Then a person starts gradually working to reveal and sense it further, and that is the revelation of the Creator. The Creator is a force, a single, enormous field that governs us.
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From the virtual lesson on 7/8/12

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Question: How best can I prepare for the convention in Kharkov, Ukraine? What depends personally on me to make it most effective?

Answer: First, it is advisable to attend our classes because they are revolving around this topic.

Secondly, you should read the materials required for the convention that have been published in Russian and other languages. I am guided by the fact that the convention will be completely in Russian. Of course, there will be translation into other languages.
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Baal HaSualm, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar,” Item 26: That means that their excessive will to receive, which had already been eradicated and rotted in the second state, must now be revived in all its exaggerated measure, with no restraints whatsoever, meaning with all its past flaws. Then begins the work anew, to convert that excessive will to receive to be only to bestow.

We have to discover that the desire to receive is entirely bad, in the worst degree. We will see not only the size of this evil, but also its evil essence in its current form, without a Masach (screen), that it is evil not only to us but also to the attainment of the goal of creation. It turns out that the desire to receive without a Masach isn’t suitable for the attainment of creation and so it is called “evil” and also “dead,” since we cannot receive the Light of life and feel the force of vitality in it.

When we understand all that, we will reach a turning point and begin to revive our desire. It is called the “resurrection of the dead”—thus we begin to correct the desire to receive so that it will be in order to bestow. We need this turning point on the way, so that we will feel the corrupt desire and decide that in this form it is “dead.”

Today the desire to receive doesn’t seem corrupt. What’s wrong in wanting to enjoy the things I love?

I have to discover all the desires inside me and to understand that when I enjoy them in the ordinary way, I prevent myself from bestowing upon the Creator. This is because bestowal is when I stop using the desires the ordinary way and enjoy each of them only when I bestow upon the Creator. I connect my desire to Him in order to understand how to bestow upon Him and so that He will enjoy the use of such a desire. Only to such an extent, for such a pleasure, when I yearn to bestow upon the Creator, do I act—receiving the Light inside me in order to feel that I bestow upon Him by that.

Thus we reach the corrections. It is impossible to reach the final state (state three) from the initial state (state one) if there are no “dead” desires on the way that are revived.

Question: How can we understand that the desire is actually dead and it is time to revive it?

Answer: It is a different type of work: Each time I kill more and more of my desires. It is impossible to know in advance that I have passed the whole way. It always seems as if there is nowhere to advance to, but the next day a new layer is revealed.

Yesterday, for example, we reached a peak; we discovered a bit more unity, impression, and excitement, we felt a special state that was a result of a new and stronger connection, which we have never felt before.

We attained it thanks to the illumination that was created among us. We evoked it and it filled us. In phase one we feel excitement and elation, but the illumination continues to act inside the desire that we managed to tie to it. It expands its activity to phases two, three, and four and the full depth of that desire is revealed to us, the new layers in which we have not reached connection yet.

Today, however, we feel heaviness. If we acknowledged that this heaviness comes from the Creator; that he sent it to us on purpose, and that he makes us feel sleepy on purpose, we could do something, we could resist the heaviness.

It is true that I feel like sleeping now and that I don’t feel like doing anything—but it comes from the Creator. He wants to develop us, and He is revealing a new vessel inside us now. How do you immediately wake up to life within the fogginess, within this sleepiness, the indifference and the confusion?

My sleepiness was caused by the weak Light. The moment it gets stronger, I will immediately wake up, like a flower that turns in the direction of the rising sun. It isn’t about lethargy; we are speaking about spiritual states that are determined by the level of the Light. The correction of the desires at midnight, before dawn, doesn’t depend on the time.

So if we woke up now to a stronger connection, and it were a truly serious internal effort, and not just singing songs, we would discover what we have gained thanks to the extra desire that we received in the convention. The whole point is to come back to life after the first surge of awakening has been replaced by the dark thickness of the erupting ego.

It doesn’t matter whether the new ascent doesn’t seem as special as the one we felt in the convention. There we were like kids and we were impressed in clean, pure desires—today our reaction is becoming deeper and we understand things in “thicker” vessels. This is how the idea of “an opposite value of Lights and vessels” is expressed.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/8/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: Why is it that when I get stronger and invest in the group, I encounter greater difficulties?

Answer: In order to help you advance, greater obstacles are placed in your way. Thus, you reach a state when the obstacles become huge, but your desire to overcome them is also very big. However, if you quit and fail to overcome a certain obstacle, your desire will not grow, and then the same obstacles will be placed in your way, and you will feel as if your car is stuck and only the wheels are spinning.

This means that you are not saving time, but that you actually are wasting it in vain. So, instead of advancing in a few years’ time and entering spirituality, you will crawl until you get there in thirty or forty years, or you may not get there at all. It will seem that you have dedicated your entire life for that, that you have worked for the Creator and yearned to attain Him, but, in fact, you did not yearn for anything.

So, before a convention of connection, we set external conditions so that, at least externally, a person will be able to check himself and see whether he is investing in his advancement or not. Does he attend the daily lesson? Does he take part in dissemination every day? Does he pay Maaser, a tithe?

He will have to fill out a form every week about what he does for the group in order to assess himself critically. How will you advance if you don’t make constant efforts to create a new vessel inside you, by preparing it for the revelation of the Creator?

You are in a system, like a spider in a web, and all your thoughts and desires that are connected to the internal work, to the spiritual goal, are under the influence of the Light. The Light influences you and helps you advance through all the hardships, problems, and rejections since “the Torah will come out of Zion” (the Hebrew root of exit).

However, you will not be able to do it by yourself. If you don’t attend the daily lesson, don’t think about dissemination, don’t work together with the friends, don’t fill out a questionnaire about “what I have done for the group,” then you won’t advance. It isn’t just a demand of you; it is because we want to help you advance at least mechanically since if your car is stuck, we want to move you and oblige you to advance.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/12/12, Writings of Rabash

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The new stage of unity—unforgettable moments from the convention in the North of Israel July 5th – 7th, 2012.

[Show slideshow]

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This congress was not only uniting, but also dividing those who meet the requirements of the group (systematic studies, dissemination, and Maaser) and those who don’t meet them.

We must come to the state when the center of our group, the steadiest friends, will meet the requirements of the Creator to become similar to Him on the first, 1/125^th degree of the ladder of His revelation. In this case, they will be able to become the part of the world group of Bnei Baruch through which the Light passes to the rest (See “The Introduction to The Book of Zohar”).

Then, around this part, other parts will be formed, like spreading waves, according to compliance with the rules of similarity with the Creator, the property of bestowal.

The rules are not invented by me, but set by the Kabbalists; we know them well, but don’t find it compulsory to perform them accurately, thinking that they are not necessary for the revelation of the Creator. Now, we were given this understanding for the first time.

I refer those who are not satisfied with these requirements to the Creator; perhaps, He might change the conditions of the contract for them: “The Law of the equivalence of form” (communicating spiritual vessels/properties).

Those who recognize the need for these conditions can choose where to be, in which circle: the central or external. In the future, we will specify the conditions of each circle.

I love all of you, and everyone is dear to me, and all this is done in order to pull everyone to the goal and eliminate the earthly confusion on the spiritual path.

Hugs,
Rav
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