Question: In what way is the congress in the North different from the one we had in the Arava desert?

Answer: We already spoke about it yesterday in the workshop when we spoke about how our feelings change as a result of the workshops and our attitude towards them. We saw that each time the beginning is more difficult—it is harder to come to the workshop—but the entrance and the connection come more quickly and our impression grows and becomes clearer and more stable.

It is the same when it comes to congresses, since a congress is a kind of a workshop, but more complex since it is made of more parts, and we have to relate to it accordingly.

Of course, it is harder to get ready for the coming congress and to the impression we should receive from it compared to the Arava convention, in which we felt as if we were leaving Egypt and coming closer to Mt. Sinai. There was something of the legend there, a kind of an adventure. Today we are facing routine work: We are coming to a new place, we fix what is necessary, we have lectures…the previous impression is missing, it has been changed to a “standard procedure,” into routine.

This is good since this is how nature provides us with a more mature attitude so that we will try to penetrate our feelings and to be impressed by more profound things.

We say that in the Arava we attained the level of Shoresh (the root level) of our vessel. The fire burned in us and we felt like heroes looking forward to an adventure. Now we’ve moved on level one or two, the desire is also “thicker,” and our attitude should be more serious. There is no room here for the “airy” euphoria, to the childish impression anymore; we should search for all this inside, in the depths of our feeling and understanding. That’s what’s important.

Today we must attain the connection under difficult conditions, without the first impression, with a desire that is thicker. We have to be thankful for having received a thicker desire. Apparently we’ve managed to do something in the past and now we should attain a much stronger impression than before that isn’t childish but much more mature.
[81971]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/02/12, “Questions About the Congress of Consolidation in North Israel”

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Baal HaSulam, Letter No. 13: …This came upon you due to your negligence of my request to exert in love of friends, for I have explained to you in every possible manner that this remedy is sufficient to compensate for your every deficiency. And if you cannot rise to heaven, I have given you ways on Earth, and why have you not added in this work at all?”

We are the ones who draw the picture of this world in our properties. Actually, we distinguish two types of impact that our desire to receive feels:

• good and comfortable
• bad and dangerous

The “matter” we consist of is the desire to receive that is divided into five (5) levels: zero to four. On all these levels, we have multiple qualities that in general can be reduced to how to receive pleasure.

Our perception of reality allows us to differentiate the edges of the Light of Infinity that can either bring us pleasure or harm. All we do is we portray them in our perception; the entire picture of our reality is woven of them.

This picture is very small and limited; Kabbalists have been telling us about this fact for thousands of years now. Lately, also scholars ascertained that we catch only a fraction of reality.

Is there a way to observe authentic reality other than the one we are born into, live and die in, in which we feel insignificant, unhappy, and incomplete?

Kabbalists say that it’s possible to perceive the true reality and sense the Light of Infinity in which we constantly dwell only on one condition: if we manage to amplify our tools of perception.

This is why the science we study is called “the wisdom of receiving.” With the help of this methodology, we manage to broaden our sensors and in addition to the five senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch— we climb a step higher towards obtaining five additional senses.

To do this, we have to change our desire to receive in terms of not only perceiving what’s important to us in a positive or negative sense, but rather to perceive things that are outside of our desire also regarding them in a positive or negative way. How do we do that?

I need to dress into somebody else, into someone who is external to me, to rise above my own sensations, both positive and negative, to the perception of what is good or bad for another. If I manage to catch somebody else’s sensations, at least the perception of one person, then I get out of myself and start identifying the world as it really is, in a initial, small extent. Then, a person can continue working on expanding my exits outside of myself, again and again, until I start sensing the reality completely independent of myself. This is called the perception beyond reason, above the desire to receive.”

We have been in the process of developing this quality for quite a long time now. The matter of which the desire is built has transitioned from the inanimate level to the vegetative, then to animate, and it has been the development of the receiving desires of self-perception. The desire to receive continued to enlarge its ability to feel various outside impacts from within until it depleted this option to the very end. There is no room for further growth in this direction any longer; so, the desire to receive now recognizes its limitations.

Here is what today’s generation is going through: We lack interest in life, indifference to further growth and what we do in this world. We can’t control ourselves and the world around us as before. Our egoistic desire has exhausted itself; we have completed this phase of evolution.

In the future, our desire to receive will push us towards the next developmental stage. It is said that by creating affliction and predicaments, the Pharaoh forced the sons of Israel to exit from Egypt. Similarly to them, we too feel hopeless in this life. The egoism that is governing us, demonstrates that it is unable to fulfill us any longer. We go the extra mile to find reasons to live, search for additional pleasures and livelihood; however, all of them lead to even deeper descents; the more we try to live better, the worse our lives become.

Even those who have everything do not sense any joy or happiness. Besides, our material life constantly gets harder. We definitely continue to fall.

This is exactly what is supposed to be happening. At some point, the sons of Israel fled Egypt because they went through a similar situation. They would have liked to stay there, but they were hit by huge blows and sufferings that didn’t leave them any choice but to escape.

When a Kabbalist begins his self-correction, he acts as if he strives to enter a beautiful spiritual world full of light, into the bright future that will open all horizons to him. However, on his way there, he discovers quite an opposite picture —tough internal life and intense burdens that press him immensely. This pressure is caused by the fact that he isn’t moving forward in the usual egoistic way. Instead, through desperation and unfortunate circumstances, he must pass through all stages of spiritual birth, meaning to exit Egypt, rise above his egoism, get out of himself, and feel what it is like to be out of his body; that is, he lives through sensing other’s desires.

In this world, the process of birth is also accompanied by labor pains (Tzirim in Hebrew), in other words by (Tzarot) troubles, sufferings, and pressure. And in particular, those feelings are given to those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah to help them advance by pushing them forward in the same way a mother’s uterus presses on the fetus for it to be born.

However, the wisdom of Kabbalah is not just telling us about the birth of a new perception and the acquisition of the transition from absorbing to releasing, from reception to bestowal. It is not a theoretical study of the process; it is not about philosophy. Kabbalah helps us to realize this by a process of spiritual birth.

After all, like a fetus in the mother’s womb, we have to feel cramped, dark, tightness, suffocation, and the need assist this process on our own. It’s a very unpleasant sensation. That’s why we are granted the wisdom of Kabbalah to begin realizing and acknowledging the process in order to make it easy and fast.

Thanks to Kabbalah, we know what to expect; we realize that we have to exit out of our internal sensations into the external world in order to avoid viewing the reality only through the limitations of our five senses; we should see the world that is outside of us, outside the womb. We have to achieve this state somehow. How?

We need an “obstetrician” here; we have to be born not as a result of painful birth contractions that push us from behind, but rather due to the outside force that pulls us forward. In this case, the process of birth will be quite easy, with the “waters,” with the property of Mercy.

For that, we need external support that has to be provided by the group, which elicits the external force. It is said: “Man shall help his neighbor.” The group can pull us out of this dark world into the bright light; it will help us raise our perception of reality to the next level so that it’s not limited by five senses anymore; but on the contrary, we begin viewing everything around us in the Reflected Light without absorbing anything inside ourselves, but rather turning outside.

Hence, the terms “bestowal,” “love,” and “mercy,” all of them, in fact, are talking about the perception of reality in a different quality, in exchanging one’s desires with the desire of his friend. If one manages to transfer one’s primary concern from himself to his group of friends, it is as if one is drawn out of the womb, out of this world, and go beyond this material realm into the world of externality. In this case, our efforts trigger the upper force’s response, which helps us go through this and to be born.

This is the first step we have to go through; it is extremely difficult. Similarly in our world, in spite of all efforts to facilitate the process of birth, to make it easy and safe, it always appears to be a miracle similar to the “miracle of exiting Egypt.” At this stage of development lies something new and extraordinary, and even more so when it comes to spiritual birth.
[81263]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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Our conventions are becoming more and more qualitative. It might be that they are not as presentable as in the past, but they are deeper. Of course, in them, we are talking about the realistic connection and unity, but now this unity, in addition to the external discoveries, is penetrating to the boundary of inner experiences and feelings.

We know that “advantage of the Light is from the darkness.”

The Light is revealed only in the vessel, and therefore, we have to prepare the vessels, the desires, to feel the exile from the spiritual world in order to reach redemption. And this is to say, that all of us must work on the necessity that is directed to this convention. We need to define the character of the convention to know what one wants, to what one wants to reach, and what should happen in our meeting. We need to build this convention by ourselves.

This is not about the technical or organizational component. I speak here about this, that we need to build from beginning to end the whole process that we need to go through in creating the connection between us, until the step in which we will reach qualitative unity and we will enable the Light to illuminate inside us. And for that, we need to work, to invest efforts, and to do preparation without any connection to the place where the person will be during the time of the convention.

We all need to see what necessity and deficiency we need to reach by our internal and external efforts, in study, in intention, and organization at the place.

I am waiting for your opinions and reactions, and according to them, we will hold our convention.

I will prepare myself according to what you will write. Then, truly there will be collaboration between us and we will progress forward maximally.

Otherwise, if I will do something people are not prepared for, it results in a one-man show. We don’t need a show here, rather unity, a mutual, common action.
[75214]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/12/12, Shamati #190

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To get a sense of the Light, we must practice, and exercises are possible only in the group. For example, a dance teacher begins to perform various movements with me: a step forward, a step backward, a spin, and so forth. The group is in front of me, and I can feel it, work with it, and thus advance.

Yes, this is very unpleasant to my egoism because, every time, I must give primacy to the group, not me, but it leads me in this “tango.” Friends express their desire, and I should follow it. As it is written, “Nullify your desire according to His desire.” I am learning how to bow my head, to accept the desire of the group as my lead partner, and come to cooperation, unity, with friends. I begin to feel their desire. It turns out that my dancing partner is reliable and close, devoted and faithful. I act for him, and he acts for me. Then, our unity turns into a real group.

The “group” means a single desire of friends to be united with each other. There is neither “me” nor “them” in this desire that is being born between us, but there is one whole, a new reality, not connection itself, but its result.

This is the spiritual fruit that came out of the mother’s womb. In it, we perceive the One and the Light; the Creator is revealed in it, in that desire to which we gave birth and created, which we have achieved by becoming one whole. There cannot be a divided multitude, but unity reigns in it.

Baal HaSulam writes about this in Letter 13: Besides the great power hidden in it, you should know that there are many sparks of sanctity in each of the friends. And as you collect all of these sparks into one place, as brothers in love and friendship, certainly you would have a very exalted degree of the level of sanctity at that hour.

A person can be included in the group in different ways, can come and go in waves, wholeheartedly or half-heartedly. Nonetheless, each of us has a unique particle of the Light that pulls him out of the bottom of this world, and that is why we must appreciate everyone. Moreover, this applies equally for men and women.

Our sparks are a true gift from above. A person is called a human (Adam) if he has this spark pulling him toward becoming similar (Adameh) to the Creator. If he does not have a spark, he still belongs to the “animate” level.

We are not speaking about some inadequacy. Some merely get a “dual” task to be born earlier than others and help everyone else to be born spiritually. They are similar to the head of humanity and must lead it forward.

That is why we need to understand that every friend has received a special attitude from above, from the Light that dressed into him. In his soul, in his spiritual root, there is something very special placed in him, so he is close to the light and receives this assignment.

Of course, he does not rise egoistically above humanity. We respect the friend because he was granted a special role to serve. We don’t treat others with disdain because this mission doesn’t depend on us.

That is why I must respect each friend. He was chosen from above, by the Light to become my partner. I cannot be born without him, and neither can humanity.
[81447]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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Question: How should we direct our “Prayer for the Many” before the convention in the North so that it will personally influence each one of us so that we will feel the importance of the group and for the world?

Answer: Conventions of this kind are very beneficial. I saw it also according to the groups I visited lately. We need to maintain the intention of bestowal for all of our friends all over the world. It is very influential and advances them significantly.

Each time, I happily discover that the gap between the groups shrinks more and more. It is especially now as the groups opened to meet the general public, when we support the unity of the congresses, and especially with the workshops, the groups feel a very, big change. The distances between us disappear, all gradually become one group, and this causes great happiness.

The convention in the North will begin on Thursday of next week. I very much hope that our friends can get away from work and their other involvements. Nowadays it is not so simple, since it can cause unpleasantness on the side of the employers. I warn you: Don’t put your position at work in danger and don’t leave if there is no possibility to take a vacation.

We will try to have a continuous live broadcast.

As to the preparation, the main thing is the connection. This means a really deep, internal connection between everyone, between all the groups and all the friends so that not one of us will be forgotten. We must prepare for more consolidated and dense activity. From Sunday of next week, we will devote special lessons to this. Be with us, and everything will work out.
[81520]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/26/12, “Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Baal HaSulam, “Letter 13”: … and this shall be your tractate of negligence ignoring my request to make efforts regarding the love of friends.

Baal HaSulam writes to his students that the problem of the group is neglecting the love of friends, which means the mutual help necessary for the spiritual birth.

How can you reveal love and unity? By taking a desire from every friend who wants to fulfill it; with the help of my attributes, my desire becomes an assistant, a “midwife” for the friend’s desire. Of course, I take the desires that are aimed at spirituality and constantly try to empower him and to raise him. Thus, mutually, we help one another according to the principle of “each one shall help his friend.”

To love the friend means to receive his desire instead of my desire. I constantly look for an opportunity to fill him and to empower him, to help him and to push him forward, to make the goal seem important to him, to give him energy and help him be in a good mood.

I explained to you in every possible way (in seventy languages) that this merit is enough to fulfill all your needs.

In other words, he used all the attributes, all the possible types of bestowal. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, the upper Partzuf with regards to the lower Partzuf is like Zeir Anpin with respect to Malchut; Zeir Anpin has seven Sefirot while Malchut is one Sefira. Overall, ten Sefirot multiplied by seven is called seventy “languages,” which means the types of bestowal that Zeir Anpin can bestow upon Malchut. And besides, it also means the pivot that determines how the scale will be tilted.

This is what Baal HaSulam speaks about: “I constantly try to convey the feeling that it is up to you to raise the positive force above the negative force. So fulfill it, exert yourselves, it is in your power and it is enough in order to complete everything that you lack. Even if you are callous and lazy, even if you are egoists and individualists, it makes no difference; everyone has received his own nature. What matters is that you make an effort.”

And if you cannot rise to Heaven, I have given you those who walk upon the earth.

To “Heaven” is the level of bestowal, Bina, and we shouldn’t think that it is unattainable. Of course you cannot do it, but try and then your efforts will summon the Light that Reforms, the upper force. By trying to come closer to the Light, you draw its influence upon you that matches the tension you display. It is a law of nature: You receive the force to be born, by your efforts.

Why did you not add to this work at all?”

Because you are only required to try and the Light always completes the other half of the work. In our egoistic world we don’t see the beginning of our actions: where the desire stems from? Why do I want this in particular? Why am I drawn in this direction? Suddenly I feel an urge, suddenly a thought is evoked, but I don’t know where it comes from. The Creator says, “I’m the first.” But this initial factor that spurs me is concealed from us. I suddenly yearn for something, exert myself and see a result as in the case of success and in the case of failure. I don’t even see that it is the actions of the Light that are aimed at the goal that have brought about this result and not my own actions.

I don’t see the beginning of the process nor its end, and in the process itself I don’t pay attention to what motivates me. I am like a baby instinctively responding to the different stimuli.

There is no such thing in spirituality. The spiritual revelation that we want to attain is the revelation of the Creator’s actions, the actions of the Light. This means that with all our efforts I demand Its overt participation. I always fulfill my first half of the work by wanting to discover his second half. Thus I find my partner, the Creator, create a vessel for His stimulus, and thus advance time after time.

Now at the beginning of this process we don’t feel it and don’t understand it. In the meantime we have to discover the second half to such an extent that we can learn to work with the Creator, just as a horse and its rider operate mutually, like two dancers dancing arm in arm. Eventually I will discover that the Creator is dressed in me and fulfills everything, but only if I agree to it, if I want to discover His leadership, His control over me.

Then it is as if I disappear by filling everything with Light. My self and the Light become one whole if I rise above my ego and exit myself.

The whole Kabbalistic method is about that: how we can exit ourselves and feel the movement of our tango “partner.” The main thing it is to follow Him harmoniously. In order to do that we need to know His attributes, and the steps He wants to take with us.

The first step is called “submission”: We only try to annul our ego, that wants to go wherever it likes to, and create a place for the actions of the Light. Thus, we help it give birth to us; we enable the “force of midwife” to pull us out of this gloomy world.
[81357]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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Question: Is it true that we need to perform internal actions only—an internal intention to fulfill the friends’ desires and not physical actions?

Answer: Yes, but how can I be sure that I have done everything correctly, and that I am not deceiving myself? If I support the physical actions in this world, I can be sure that my intentions are correct.

Otherwise, I can tell you how much I love you, but how can you believe if this is true or not? And it isn’t about the fact that I may be deceiving you, I am not sure that I am not deceiving myself. What can I do so that it will be the truth?

It is for this reason that we are in a group, in a physical world. If the action and the intention go hand in hand, it proves that we are acting correctly, honestly, and that we are not lying.

If I cannot perform any actions and only intend to bestow upon the friends, it means that my intention is false. If I only act without the right intention and do not intend to reach the Creator through the friend, the action is false, and we are actually doing it for our own benefit. So there must be a state in our world in which we have to perform physical actions that can be accompanied by the spiritual intention of bestowal.

When we are in a group, we have a chance to check ourselves. Therefore, this world was created on the lowest level on which we can perform false actions: smile at one another, help each other as if we bestow, but it is all for our self-benefit. If we begin to work on our intention in the group and to draw the Light, as we want to reach bestowal upon the Creator through the group, we begin to see our true intentions. There should be a combination of the two worlds here, this world and the spiritual world.

So we reach the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) when we climb all the 125 degrees, only if we exist in this world in a physical body as we do that. If we haven’t managed to go all the way up during our lifetime, we return to this world. After all, we must constantly exist in the two worlds: in the intention—in the spiritual world, and in physical actions—in the corporeal world.

This is why the situation today is so special. We’ve reached such a state in the corporeal world that pushes us to develop the intention to bestow. Otherwise, we will not be able to survive. People call it a crisis, and we call it a new path, a new phase in human development, in which we have to discover the spiritual world and to connect it to the corporeal one.

Only a person who studies Kabbalah can do that. This is why we have to develop as fast as we can in order to teach the world. The world won’t be able to it independently since it is only possible to reach a connection with the upper world if you have the “point in the heart,” an aspiration to rise spiritually. Therefore, we have to think about the whole world and to hasten our development.
[81350]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 3

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Question: If I become confused, how can I check whether I advance correctly?

Answer: It is impossible to become confused in actions: It is obvious if I do something to benefit others or myself. All the clarifications are in intention and are realized with the help of the group.

If you are in the group and perform actions in it as it is said: “Make yourself a teacher, buy a friend and try to justify every person” and all this with the intention to reach the Creator, then you cannot go wrong. If you separate yourself from the group, then certainly you are no longer on the correct path.

That is why all our freedom of will is only to choose the best and strongest environment. Otherwise, all our actions will be carried out at the subconscious animal level, and there will be no freedom in them, as if you don’t exist as an independent person, but completely obey your inner impulses and instincts.

Only if you give yourself to the group and agree with its influence on you, can you advance in this form.
[81348]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 3

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The group is very important to us because it can become a “spiritual obstetrician” for everyone, the force that pulls us out of feeling only this world into an additional sensation of an external reality. If it weren’t for the group, we would feel pain, pressure, and troubles within the “womb” of this world until we finally found the force that could deliver us to the Light.

Therefore, even if our world is filled with suffering, by itself it is not enough to deliver us into the spiritual world, that is, to give us the “beyond corporeal” perception. The power of suffering isn’t enough; we need another force.

Today we are experiencing the spiritual birth of all of humanity, and our group, the world Bnei Baruch group has to get ready for the role of the “obstetrician” to the whole world. We are being prepared for that now, by being developed faster than the rest of humanity. We are being pushed a little from behind and mainly are being pulled forward.

Unlike the others, we don’t only experience troubles in this life, which we could do without, but we also feel the force that pulls us forward. This is the “obstetrician” that wants to help us be born faster, so that we will come out and become the “group obstetrician” for all of humanity, helping them emerge from the womb. This is the way things are today.

Accordingly, we should understand that we were awakened only for one reason, so that in the future we will help the world. It is only for this that each of us was rewarded with the force that pulls a person from this world to the upper world. All our actions should be coordinated with our group, with all the other groups, and with all of humanity.

Humanity is going through  a period of great suffering and pressure, but there is no force to pull it out, there is only a force that pushes from the inside. On the whole, it suffers aimlessly. People are asking themselves the urgent question: “What should I do next?” and they have no answer. This concerns the G8 and G20 conferences and the conferences of world leaders, scientists, philosophers, and political scientists; they are all searching, but since there is no pulling force, they don’t know what to do. Everyone has his own philosophy, his own point of view, but they have no solution.

For us it is a sign that we have to hasten our development and to be born as soon as possible in order to help them. Baal HaSulam talks about this in the articles “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” “The Peace,” and in other places. Eventually this is our role. Therefore, each of us must feel responsible and understand that he exists for the higher goal and not think about personal benefit but about how to become a partner of the Light of Ein Sof (Infinity). It is only through us that it can influence all of humanity and pull people out of the womb of this dark world, so that the birth will be smooth and without complications. In our world too, giving birth is a very dangerous thing.

Let’s hope that we will be able to help humanity in time. Since without this, as Baal HaSulam says, there may be nuclear world wars, natural disasters, hardships, and other disasters. The reason is that the external force, the midwife, that is our group, isn’t ready to become the conductor of the birth process, while at the same time the internal pressure, the “labor pains” are growing.

So we have to be very serious and feel responsible, understanding what we are up against. On one hand, the upper Light demands our cooperation regarding humanity and regarding every member in the group. We will not be born by sitting and waiting for one another. It is only by collective efforts that it will happen with everyone. On the other hand, humanity is in rage, furiously waiting for our help.
[81344]
From the Miami Convention 6/23/12, Lesson 1

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Miami Convention, Workshop 3

Miami Convention, Lesson 4

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