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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Miami Convention, Lesson 1

Miami Convention, Workshop 1

Miami Convention, Lesson 2

Miami Convention, Workshop 2

Miami Convention, Lesson 3

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Question: How should one use the workshop in order to see the world through the prism of the group?

Answer: It will happen when you create a point of connection. This means that the force that is created between us will reach such an intensity that it will not let us disconnect from it. I will constantly want to be within it. I will understand that only from there can I judge everything within the light of truth and not be mistaken.

Only what I see through the shared focus of the group, the central point of the circle, constitutes the real world. In this way, I can judge and never be incorrect in my judgment.

All of this will be revealed to a person. Thus, he will not want to leave this connection, but will constantly aspire only to strengthen this same point of our unity. In this way, we begin to ascend the levels.

To the extent that we join together and intensify our connection, both quantitatively and qualitatively, we rise higher and higher on the spiritual ladder until we discover the Creator and the connection between us in the form of Partzufim and Sefirot. Then, we begin to see how everything that is described in the sources takes place between us.
[78487]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions” 

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Question: What should I do if during the seminar I’m thinking a lot about unity, but it’s difficult for me to feel it?

Answer: Our work is happening between the feelings and the mind, in the middle line. One needs to keep to this middle line in one’s thoughts, desires, intentions, and relationships, in everything. A one-way bias in any direction is not acceptable. Since all of this is being revealed in creation opposite to the Creator, it must be revealed in the middle line.

The whole of the nature exists only thanks to the fact that it is in some medium, the intermediate states between the absolute plus and minus, in a balance between extreme states.

However, on the human level, balance is not reached by averaging, like it is on the still, vegetative, or animate levels, but by the means that the minus and the plus are uniting together! The left and the right lines do not balance themselves out in the middle, but are united at the center, and that is why this middle line turns out to be on a higher level than their simple sum. This is the difference between the middle line in our world and in the spiritual.

It needs to be understood that all of these concepts, which we are studying on ourselves, will arrive at a balance and will provide the right approach for us towards the solution of any kind of problems.
[78484]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati, Article 69, “First Will Be the Correction of the World”: He said that first will be the correction of the world, then will be the complete redemption…that first the interior of the worlds will be corrected and subsequently the exterior of the worlds…and the root of Israel is from the interior of the worlds.

“Israel” are those who are drawn to Yashar-El (straight to the Creator), those who have the “point in the heart.” In the past in Ancient Babylon, a group of people discovered this desire and broke off from the others, and named itself according to its direction to the goal. Later this group became a nation that went through ages of development.

Now history is repeating itself, and again there is a group that organizes according to the same principle and is also called “Israel,” according to the direction of its development. It belongs to the interior part because it is the desires of Galgata ve Eynaim, the vessels of bestowal.

This is the meaning of “for ye were the fewest of all peoples.” However, by correcting the interior, the exterior is corrected too, though in small pieces. And the exterior will be corrected every time, until all the exterior is corrected.

Thus, it is enough to correct the “one percent” in order to correct the whole world, bit by bit, part by part.

This means that we have to find people who feel the importance of the goal of creation, of the interior development. They should connect so that they will feel and understand where our evolution is headed. By connecting and correcting themselves, they will pass on the correction to the exterior part as well and influence the whole world.

This is why we are having a convention in America, not for external dissemination, but for people who yearn to discover the upper force. We should provide them with the necessary conditions to unite, so that they will be able to fulfill the correction and then it will flow from them to the world.

They have to feel that they are responsible for that, since the exterior part cannot operate independently. Ordinary people, from the leaders to common folks cannot correct themselves. Only those who have the point in the heart can do that. We turn to them by explaining to them what the correction depends on and what they should do in order to help the world.
[77466]
From the Lesson in New Jersey on 5/10/12, Shamati #69

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Question: During the convention we always feel infinite pleasure and fulfillment, but the moment the convention is over, there is immediately a heavy feeling of emptiness and reluctance to carry on. What does this hardening of the heart after the convention symbolize and how should we work with it?

Answer: I think that we felt these things after conventions we had in the past. We shouldn’t feel this way now because we don’t work from one convention to another any more, which is the reason that we used to fall after each convention, like after receiving a temporary gift, which we couldn’t hold on to.

Now we have to work continuously at building our collective vessel, and so we shouldn’t feel such deep descents although there will be descents and ascents on this way too, as there should be. This is because the upper Providence is revealed by the “round” and “straight” impact. During the straight influence, the upper Providence is revealed a bit and during the round influence, it summons periods of exile.

Every individual, whole groups, and even the whole world go through such “exiles” and “redemptions” alternately. These states are sequential, and nature is constantly changing: The seasons change, the geological eras, and the ecological eras all change in the endless process we are in.

We have to go through all these processes, but our advancement should be in a straight line, in the “middle line.” We will have to clarify it since we are the first to start this process, like the “last generation” of the egoistic world. So I don’t think there will be any special descents after the conventions. Our conventions will be of a different nature, which will be determined in the next few months.

I doubt whether the question about the descent after the convention will be relevant. But if someone still feels a descent, he should ask the friends for help. If the whole group is in a state of descent, it should turn to other groups for help since it depends on them as one man in one heart.

Thus everyone should help one another, keeping the finger on everyone’s pulse, taking care that not one friend will disappear and not one group will fall if it isn’t a purposeful fall.
[78384]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/20/12, “Talk About Past Conventions”

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