Question: What success do you anticipate from the convention?

Answer: I expect us to feel the first form of man, clothing us, that is, the Creator revealed in our unity. But let it be a clear revelation, not something vague, when everyone felt just the beginning of a new state as it was felt at the convention in the desert and even before it.

This must be realized practically so that we feel the movement inside, the spirit dwelling in us, and the changing actions of the Light.

If the Light does not move, we do not feel it, and we do not have the breath of life. There has to be Ruach (spirit, wind) or changes, but not the degree of Nefesh that remains motionless. What we felt before was the first still degree. And now we need Ruach, the small changes within that give us a feeling of life.

After all, we, the created beings, feel only changes from a state to a state, and through this contrast we check and understand each property. Our perception works on the basis of contrast, it needs movement so that one is different from the other. Hence, let us hope that we will feel the breath of life. The creature is born from it, but not from Nefesh.

Nefesh is like a drop of semen, which came from the father. But when it begins to grow, it acquires its own existence. If there is a new movement in it, beside that initial drop of semen, it is already a new life, a new body. It belongs to the fetus, not to the father. These are the tangible changes that we are waiting to happen in us—only they are felt like life.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/2012, “Introduction to TES“

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Our only goal is to discover the upper Light, the only force that rules the world. After all, everything else is only the means. Besides this, there is no problem in our existence because every given moment and every situation in our life is defined by our contradiction to the Light. And so we should relate to everything as the means to discover the Light.

Some states are more efficient and some are less. In any case, everything depends on whether I can accept the Light correctly and use it.

Now we are facing a special state: connection above many obstacles and differences between the parts of our collective spiritual vessel. This was made possible as a result of many great efforts and the hard work of our European division, as well as of our friends from these countries, who have gathered together.

No state in the world is more tense, where as a result of the crisis and everything that is going on these days, the discrepancies and differences between the components of the collective vessel are so great and the internal states of each part are so intense. But at the same time, we have made many efforts in preparing for this convention, where representatives of nations and countries that are so different and have so many internal conflicts and different accounts with one another gather to connect.

There is actually “Mt. Sinai” here—a mountain of mutual hate, distance, lack of understanding, and the inability to accept one another. After all, every one is a representative of a separate part that acts against another. And we want to connect above all that. We have a special opportunity that doesn’t exist anywhere else, not in any other event. Nowhere is there such tension like in the collective vessel that will gather at the European convention.

Therefore, we should pay special attention to that. From all these differences, we should constantly feel that we connect above them and want to reveal the inner hatred, the inner breach among us, and contradictions. They all remain, and we understand, feel, and don’t blur them. They are turbulent inside like a boiling stew on the stove. We cover it with a lid and don’t let it explode or get cold. On the contrary, we constantly want to keep this fire burning so that it will turn into a flame of love.

This is one of the feelings we should have in the coming European convention. Although compared to the size of the convention in Israel there will be perhaps 20% of the capacity of the collective vessel, looking at the quality, which in spirituality determines the power of the vessel, it will be stronger and greater than everything we had in the past. Both the distance and the events taking place in the continent make this a very special situation.

Therefore, we really hope that as a result of our efforts, above all the differences, the lack of understanding and the distance, we will be able to connect. We now have the opportunity to rise above all the differences, “to lock” ourselves above them, and then according to the differences between the peoples and the cultures—and between us who are connected to one another—we will feel the power of the vessel, in which there will be enough room to discover the Light.
[73265] 
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/2012, The Zohar

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Vilnius Convention Preliminary Lesson
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We have to convene internally, so that we will be together, as one man in one heart, in one thought, so that the point of unity will be revealed among us, as one of our friends put it as “a mad feeling of love that seeped into our hearts in the Arava convention.” We should hold on to this point again.

Not only do have to hold on to it again, but we also have to feel it, to reveal it now much more than then when it was first discovered. First it is revealed simply as a point, as something in which I find myself.

Later it seems to close, and to diminish gradually by the different feelings and problems in this world. But it doesn’t go anywhere. We’ve already attained it, and it is ours.

Now we should feel this point on a totally new dimension: His power, His desire, and the source of our lives.

Then we will feel how all this operates around us. We will see the forces that are behind people, and how they operate everything: how people move, their thoughts, their desires, their bodies. We will see how everything turns and leads to one stream, to the attainment of the Creator.

We should see this for the first time, even if we won’t understand it, but we will be included in this state.

Question: What wave are you expecting?

Answer: I expect that people will come prepared, and will know what is about to happen as well as they can, that they will understand the essence of the convention, its goal, and that they will be able to quickly be included in one another.

There is no need for personal acquaintances. It is okay if I don’t know anyone. I only know that everyone has come in order to unite and to see and feel the upper level above us, the next level of the world.

Question: What should they do?

Answer: I strongly recommend that those who are behind the screen do everything that they can so that they won’t feel the screens, but rather feel themselves and us together, so that we will rise above the distance and the virtual connections that separate us, so that although we see and feel ourselves only through technical means of communication, we will feel that we have one heart and that it is on one place. It isn’t in Vilnius or anywhere else, it is above us, above all the corporeal obstacles like time, movement and distance.

We are together! I hope that we will feel it this weekend and in this single place we will feel the revelation of the Creator.
[73358]

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We need to gather and to create a real serious tightness among us, so that like in a nuclear explosion the pressure will give birth to the Light that is concealed inside. It is the internal pressure that will reveal it.

In addition, we simply must, in all the conventions we will hold until the summer, go through certain states. Otherwise, we and the whole world will find ourselves under another Providence that is totally undesirable. We absolutely need that! It is not only for us but for everyone, for the whole world.

Now the atmosphere and the situation are right for that, but it may change in the future. Therefore, I am in a great hurry and I am hastening everyone.

I hope we take this seriously! I am very happy that the groups throughout the world understand this and do feel that our birth point is near, and that we have to go through it! We have to push ourselves through the Machsom, (barrier)! We are already there, but on the other side.
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Eight years ago at the convention in Sitrin, we all shouted: “We will break though the Machsom (barrier)!” I kept quiet then because there was no point in saying anything or to object. What does it mean to “break through”? Will we, by using our ego, break the spiritual Machsom?

Gradually we began to understand that it is possible to transcend the Machsom only by the connection among us, by repressing the ego and rising to the attribute of bestowal, to mutual connection, above our ego, and then by creating something that is external to us, external to our egoistic “self.”

This is the only way a collective vessel is created, because it can only exist as a collective vessel and not as everyone’s individual vessel! Gradually the spiritual thoughts and desires were formed in us. After all, it is a long way! Look at what we’ve been through since then! It is an internal spiritual revolution inside a person!

We’ve started talking about it and beating the ego since the beginning of the crisis, because the ego has been revealed in the world as a negative force. Since then, we’ve been getting closer to the point of our connection, the point of our adhesion, in which we really find ourselves as being reborn in the upper world, in the next phase of attaining nature.
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The coming European convention is a great hope for connection and for being able to sense the revelation of the Creator in the connection among us, the revelation of the spiritual world. First, the Reforming Light that operates on us will connect us and we will feel the adhesion among us, which we attain in order to bring contentment to the Creator. Then according to the equivalence of form, it will be revealed in us and we will feel that “Israel (those who yearn for the Torah), the Torah (the Reforming Light), and the Creator, are one.”

We yearn for the union of all the souls into one soul that is filled with the upper Light, to feel it, to discover it and to live in it, first by ourselves because we already have the desire for it, and then to help the whole world attain it. Eventually everything that is revealed in our world—all the suffering, the crises and the troubles—are nothing more than forces that hasten the development of humanity towards this perfect state.

Therefore, when we yearn for this perfect state, we want to achieve two goals: love of the Creator and love of humanity. We want to bestow all the goodness that we achieve by our work and our attainment on both humanity and the Creator. After all, we are in the middle, between them, like the middle third of Tifferet that has nothing and doesn’t want anything for itself—Hafetz Hesed. We only enjoy bringing pleasure to humanity and through it, through all this general soul, to the Creator.

This is the vessel we have to prepare. This is the state we have to reach. Therefore, while reading The Zohar, we want to approach it. Let’s think about it!

If a person imagines the next state he wants to reach, it is already a prayer. After all, I don’t know where the Creator is, how to raise a request to Him, MAN, who it goes through, what this MAN actually is, or what desires it is. That’s the way it is in our lives: If we want something, we imagine that we already have it, and yearn for this imaginary picture where we are in the desired state.

They say that if you want to be slim—don’t diet, don’t listen to all kinds of advice, and don’t take diet pills and exercise, etc. nothing will help. Only constantly think that you are already slim. Then you will see that you don’t feel hungry any more and you will really lose weight.

It is really so, and it is the same with everything: You must imagine that you are already in the future state and you will really advance towards it. The yearning that is aimed at the goal will bring you there.

It is the same with us. So let’s imagine that we are really in the good state. There is no need to evoke any deficiencies, troubles, and worries, but only to yearn for this whole state, and try as hard as we can to help ourselves to actually reach that.
[73047]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/19/12, The Zohar

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We can talk about our advancement and ourselves as well as imagine the perspective from Above, from the source of reality. We reveal our work from below, while its cause from Above.

What was the purpose of creation? It is said that such is the desire of the upper one: to create a creature as perfect as He is. Thus in all our actions and intentions, while we scrutinize what happens with us, we should always remember that the end goal of it all is to reveal the Creator, to reveal precisely Him.

Whatever I feel, think, ponder, or aspire for is correct; such is the path of analysis. But what do I reveal on this path, my own self? No, I reveal myself opposite to the Creator. That is, in fact, I reveal Him.

We know from the wisdom of Kabbalah that in the world of Infinity there is no deficiency in anything but the realization of the Giver. The creature, called Malchut of the world of Infinity, must understand, feel, and attain Him.

That is why this round of creation is necessary: the descent into our world and the ascent back into Malchut of Infinity, which we have to carry out. This path from the bottom up is intended for the sole purpose of ascension in the attainment of the Giver.

We attain Him according to the equivalence of form: The more we resemble Him, the more we understand and feel Him, and the nearer we draw to Him. The end result is in its initial thought; hence, first and foremost, we have to establish the intention, that is, what do I want to achieve through all of my actions? What’s done is done, but why do I need it?

However, even before I clarify the intention, I need the initial thought of this intention’s primary origin since the idea is to reveal the Giver, the Creator. That is our goal.

I reveal in myself thoughts, intentions, desires, and attitudes, but essentially, through these actions I search for Him. “How do I go about doing it? What do I think? What do I want? How to I interact with someone or something?” Before each such discernment I prepare myself for the right attitude: Everything that I do is intended to reveal the Creator.

I need to draw some connections here:

• Whoever I am, He prepared it for me;
• Whatever I think every second, He gives me;
• Whatever happens with me right now during this analysis, it happens according to His will;
• However I react to what I feel, He, too, gives it to me.

There is only one thought, one statement that should always be mine: “Everything that is happening with me is coming from the Creator.” The first Shamati article talks about it: “There is None else Beside Him.”

Now, when I clarify my intentions—either for the sake of reception or for the sake of bestowal—they certainly come from the Creator. However, what is important to me in this analysis is that I reveal Him; I clarify who He is.

Out of all these discernments, the mosaic of reality takes shape inside of me. My friends, the world around me, its events and circumstances, everything should merge into one picture of the Creator. To the extent it appears internally, separate pieces come together: all creatures, this entire world, and all worlds together in one whole structure whose internal form is called the “Creator.” In its entirety, this structure represents Malchut of the world of Infinity or, in other words, the vessel, the desire. It is precisely His form, His structure, and interaction of all of His parts: desires, thoughts, and intentions that take on the form of the Giver.

The Creator Himself, Azmuto, does not have a form. However, we conduct a ceaseless analysis in ourselves and gradually create the form similar to His. As a result, He can be revealed. In the same manner, to detect waves that are unknown to us, we build a device in which they can be duplicated and reproduced. It allows us to discover them and study their nature.

The internal scrutiny helps us create a “place” to reveal the Creator; otherwise, He will remain concealed from us. That is why it is said that the Creator wants to dwell in the lower ones, meaning to reveal Himself to them. That is the reason He created the world of Infinity, and our work is comprised of revealing Him through our efforts.

Thus, the revelation of the Creator is the result of our internal scrutiny. He will not reveal Himself—our efforts and exertion are needed here. We exert our efforts, we want it and we don’t, the forces of reception and bestowal collide inside of us, and thereby we constantly prepare a place for His revelation.

Eventually, this place will become “pliable” enough so we could detect in it small “waves,” the Creator’s forms in the matter of desire. The more we soften our material, the more the Creator is revealed within it. He Himself is concealed; however, the matter begins to assume His form. This is what comprises all our clarifications: With their help we are preparing our desire to take on His imprint, His revelation.

Hence, with our every action it is necessary to remember that we, the world, and everything else in general exist only in order for us to reveal the Creator. It’s not a topic for discussion but the fact descending from the sources of creation. If I lay the foundation for any of my actions, thoughts, or intentions with that fact in mind, if I originally take this course, if I am directed toward the revelation of the Creator since such is His desire, then I am aimed at Infinity, at that very goal. And everything that I do later on will surely enter that depository of efforts that we must replenish.

Everything else will take place anyway. Only one thing depends on us: to direct our all our efforts toward the revelation of the Creator.

Later, the following questions arise: What does this revelation represent? How does one actualize it? What actions will prove most effective? Who does it depend on: myself, others, or our interaction? All in all, we are talking about the method that Kabbalists describe for us, explaining how to carry out actions that are most beneficial for the revelation of the Creator.

Today, the whole of humanity stands at the beginning of this revelation. Evolution came to the conclusion; the world has already realized the potential of materialistic progress. We have nothing to look for on other planets and nothing to extract from the earth; we have tried everything on its surface as well, and we saw that our life is limited and leads to a dead-end.

It is the beginning of the Creator’s revelation to all creatures. Because of this impediment people will start asking the question: “What for and why do we live? What is the purpose of life?”

From here on we learn that the purpose of our life is to reveal the Creator or, to be more precise, to prepare ourselves for His revelation. We achieve that through uniting, and thereby soften our desire to receive so it could become altruistic and begin to assume various sorts of bestowal. After all, the Creator is the quality of bestowal, and if we establish such a connection with each other, we help Him reveal Himself between us, we prepare the soil for it, the matter that will be able to assume His qualities, His projection.

Thus we develop ourselves in precise equivalence to His form.
[71271]
From the Arava Convention 2/23/12, Lesson #2

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While advancing toward revelation, we have to understand how to collect broken vessels (desires). Baal HaSulam writes about this in Igrot (Letters), Pg. 70: “However, because of the breaking of the vessels, all the Otiot (letters) were ejected to corporeal conducts and people. When one corrects oneself and reaches the root of one’s soul, he must collect them by himself, one-by-one, and bring them back to the root, to holiness.”

With the breakage of the vessels in the spiritual world, a coarser layer of desire was formed called “this world,” which is where we find ourselves now. Everything that happened at that time of breakage is now being revealed in our world in a corrupted form, between corporeal people.

And if a person realizes that everything happening between him and others is a result of the shattering of desires, he then takes all the connections with other people and returns them to the root, corrects them one by one. That means he “sentences himself and the entire world to a scale of merit.”

“The matter of the unification of the Creator and Divinity that one induces when he has had his fill of yearning and longing is precisely like the underside coupling, applying in the birth of a corporeal body. It too extends necessarily by cause and effect, meaning the hardening that is a certain measure of longing and yearning, called hardness in the corporeal tongue. Then, one’s seed is also blessed…” (Baal HaSulam, Igrot [Letters], Pg. 70).

A person reaches unity with the Creator only when he ardently longs for it. We possess a desire toward spiritual attainment, but it’s given to us from Above and doesn’t belong to us. Everyone was brought into a group at some point of time, and he comes to study because he is being awakened from Above. Everything he does is guided from Above; his actions are not yet his own, but the work of the Creator on him.

Apart from a desire, there is also yearning, and that is a special notion: an addition to the desire. It comes to me not from the Creator, but from the environment. When I connect with others, I receive their yearning toward spirituality. It’s an addition to the desire that I get from working with the environment. Only this yearning is counted in spiritual work, meaning only the additional desire that I gained with my own efforts, and I advance accordingly to it.

A simple desire toward spirituality can be great, and a person may be ready to study around the clock and to disseminate. But that’s not his own desire. He’s being wound up from Above like a windup toy; when you turn a key, it starts jumping. And a person can do a lot, but the question is whether this can be attributed to his own earned desire or to a desire given to him from Above.

Looking from aside, it’s impossible to know what’s the case. Only a person himself can examine and discover that. And in so doing, he won’t be able to complain about studying for so many years, learning so much, but not receiving a revelation. This is because the desire he is working with is not his, but belongs to the Creator who created it. He has to receive an addition to this desire that is called spiritual yearning.

It’s very important. However, many make the mistake of working with the original desire thinking that everything is fine: “Look at how much I do.” But only an addition that I earned with my own efforts is counted in spirituality. Everything that was given by the Creator is not counted because it existed in the world of Infinity. This is not why the development of the worlds and the breaking of Adam HaRishon took place. Everything already existed in the world of Infinity.

The only thing that didn’t exist in Infinity and that is required for us to start ascending from below upward is a spiritual yearning, pressure, and our own awakening. This is called MAN, a prayer.

We have to take this additional desire that didn’t exist in the world of Infinity from the environment. We have it thanks to the shattering! This is why I feel all the others as strangers. If they are separate from me, I can receive an impression from them. This impression is called “envy, lust, and ambition lead a person out of this world.”

I envy what others have and thereby increase my desire. This addition to my desire, which is called yearning, pressure, or perseverance with which I realize this desire, is what helps me build my spiritual vessel.
[72225]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Indeed, there is no dispute here, for everyone admits that to begin with, it is enough to start with one nation …for the beginning of the correction of the world. Undoubtedly, both the physical purity and the mental exaltedness of our Holy Fathers greatly influenced their sons and their sons’ sons, and their righteousness reflected upon that generation, whose members all assumed that sublime work, and each and every one stated clearly, “We shall do and we shall hear.” Because of that, we were chosen, out of necessity, to be a chosen people from among all the nations.

We study the general system that stems from the four phases of the expansion of the Direct Light. The Light operates on the desire that it created as “existence from absence,” and inevitably, the desire develops by the four phases. Only in the last phase does it feel itself separated from the root, from the Light, and in this state perceives the root as the bestowing one and itself as the receiving one.

As a result of this feeling of separation, the oppositeness in attributes, the desire restricts itself and performs internal changes in order to resemble the root. The root gives it the feeling of self-deficiency that stems from the evil and lowliness of receiving, and so the desire wants to change itself and to resemble its root.

The four phases create the matrix of Yod-Key-Vav-Key (HaVaYaH), or the “the name of the Creator.” This means that the Creator imprints His name, His action, in matter, meaning in the desire of the created being.

All our development occurs following the format of Yod-Key-Vav-Key, through the four phases and their root, or through the five worlds. In each one there are five Partzufim, and each one is divided into five Sefirot, a total of 125 degrees.

The five general stages of development are divided according to the Aviut (depth, “thickness”) of the desire, from the root (zero) level until the fourth phase, or into five Sefirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, ZA, and Malchut, or five Partzufim: Galgalta, AB, SAG, MA, and BON, or five worlds: AK, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, and Assiya. In short, the format of HaVaYaH surrounds everything, and there is nothing else in reality except for these five parts of the desire to receive. The Creator is also inside.

Accordingly, the last phase, Malchut, which needs correction, also includes five phases that are corrected gradually, starting with the “tip of Yod.” The levels that preceded us are called “forefathers” and “sons.” And we stem from them. This is the order of the correction of the vessels.

In fact, the level of the forefathers begins from Adam who was the first to discover the Creator. Then came the souls who do not belong to this world, although we call them Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and so on. It is a matter of numerology, as the name reflects the level that the soul attained in its correction.

We come after all these souls from the degrees of HBD and HGT, and we belong to the degrees of NHY. On the whole, all the souls make up the general vessel, and so at our stage we should see the continuation of the previous levels. Our small level is also divided into three corresponding parts: HBD, HGT, and NHY. In this round we are the forefathers with regards to the last degree, the last generation.

So we are connected to the forefathers because all the Sefirot match one another and are connected. Because we belong to the level of the forefathers, it is hard for us to be corrected. After all, it isn’t just about something that exists; rather, we have to rise in our mind and heart, in awareness and understanding, in clear attainment, and in a large scale, finite, and perfect action.

So we should be grateful that we were privileged to be the first. Yes, it is not easy. There are people in the world who prefer a “quiet place” and little responsibility, but there are those who want to spread the Creator’s name in the world. There is nothing we can do, it doesn’t depend on us; however, we should be grateful that we received such a special role, we should be proud. You can be a farmer, for instance, and simultaneously disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah.

There are many interruptions along this difficult path, which are especially meant for us. It will be much easier for others. We will build schools, kindergartens, and different systems for the new world: industry, management, government, and health care systems, and then people will enliven all that.

But it is us who attain the Creator fully and wholly, not like the forefathers in the past. They only had the Light of Nefesh, while we attain the head of the level with the greatest vessels of NHY, the essence of the Thought of Creation itself. This is because the wisdom of Kabbalah begins with the question about the meaning of our lives, about knowing the Creator, about attaining Godliness. All this is revealed on our degree.
[72131]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson 7

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