The world is waiting. It doesn’t know yet, but in reality it needs it. This is why you have to get up on your feet as soon as possible and become ready for the role of the guides.

Today it is obvious that the governments are incapable of governing the world. After all, it no longer behaves according to the material laws. This period has ended.

The two worlds have become so close that the spiritual “induction” is already acting upon us from above although it’s not so clear yet. Today humanity has to awaken in the correct way and this is your task.

However, for this purpose you have to unite. I cannot set up a scream for help instead of you. Only when you really start to unite with friends more and more will you find the required tuning. The most important thing here is to glue into one whole so that everything would merge together into one. I will not do this for you since we are talking about the calibration of the common desires that are united as connected vessels.
[71931]
From the Arava Convention 2/25/12, Lesson #6

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Question: I see the spiritual path as a glass half-full. The filled half is love and the empty part is hatred. Shouldn’t each one of us see the full part of the glass and be inspired by what is there so that it will help us rid ourselves of many complaints and advance?

Answer: First of all, we must get inspired by what the Creator is doing with us. In reality we received an enormous credit that we didn’t deserve, a huge advancement and all the opportunities and conditions. Most importantly the Creator gave us the desire and the aspiration to move forward.

No matter what happens the Creator doesn’t leave us. You can’t imagine how thoroughly He is working with us, even when we don’t seem to want it! It is the Creator that lessens our desire for spirituality and then strengthens it once again. As a result of this we become hopeless and we yell and become a bit angry with Him. Then once again we love Him and we’re ready to connect. This is how the Creator plays with us. For the time being we don’t do anything on our own. We must see His masterful work in everything and be at least a little bit grateful.
[71839]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson #4

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What is the purpose of unity in the group and love of friends? We receive more and more obstacles, and we must connect them to the general jigsaw of unity. Each time we are aware that everything comes from Him, “There is none else beside Him,” “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are One.”

When we come to this, we see that we’re given huge help because it acts as part of reality for our benefit. We have the friends, the group, and together we can constantly connect everything that is happening to us to the unity of the Creator. Each one of us supports the others, and together we try to connect our aspirations in order to treat the Creator more objectively, while the general desire is constantly growing and being corrected.

In this case, I won’t be puzzled as to why I need the friends, unity, the group, and love towards the neighbor. Without this, I simply would not be able to solve the problems of connection between the Creator and myself.

This game is wonderful. As Baal HaSulam wrote in Letter 1, The truth is that all the wars in this exile are a truly wonderful sight, and all they bring is good. Elsewhere he gives the example of the ascent to the king’s palace. We constantly experience the sudden shifts and changes in this game, at times feeling the unity for a few minutes, then breaking into pieces and recollecting ourselves into one whole, on and on.

Working with obstacles is the main element of our work. First, we neutralize them, because one cannot sense the unity while sensing the obstacles. I just cancel them, in order to forget everything and connect with my friends. This is the smallest degree, the conception (Ibur).

Then I get obstacles of a different kind; I cannot simply cancel them anymore, I cannot erase them from my perception. Now I need to learn to always remain in unity, in spite of them. Desires of bigger and bigger Aviut (coarseness) arise, which cannot possibly be eliminated, I live with them: On one hand, I feel the obstacle to unity; on the other hand, I overcome it, I rise above it and connect nevertheless. This is called infancy (Yenika).

Finally, I start using the obstacles in order to unite; this is called maturity (Gadlut).

Thus, we always work with obstacles. There is nothing to do without them. They reflect the distance between the Creator and us, and we constantly cover this distance, first by neutralizing the obstacles, then rising above them and, finally, acting in accordance with them.

So the whole process can be broken down into two parts. After the preliminary stage, during which we prepare ourselves, comes a moment when we can unite. This is the first point above the Machsom (the barrier to spirituality): We enter bestowal for the sake of bestowal. In relation to the group, it is said about this: “Anything that you hate do not do to your friend.” This is still passive unity, I’m not yet truly united with the friends, but at least I’m not harming anyone. We might not be able to bestow to each other yet, but this is the way we advance.

And then we will reach reception for the sake of bestowal—the stage of love.

So the whole work is performed with the obstacles. And that’s why the only preparation is to seek the force and the means. When a person faces a problem, he finds out what can be of benefit to him and what to push away, so that it doesn’t get in the way. This is the way we always have to prepare ourselves in terms of obstacles, neutralizing and even using them whenever possible. Thanks to them we advance, and if there is an opportunity to unite while having them—all the better.

When we truly try to start working, we see that without mutuality we cannot make a single step forward. When I face an obstacle, I cannot overcome it on my own; I will forget and run away. Only in unity with others when we create the place in which to connect, we can start using the obstacles for the benefit of this unity. We unite in spite of them, and then we succeed.

And that’s why we shouldn’t treat the obstacles as individual effects of certain individual factors. The solution to any obstacle is in greater unity between people in order to reveal a form of bestowal, and this is what’s called the Creator.
[71642]
From the Arava Convention 2/24/12, Lesson #4

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We need to love the game the Creator is playing with us. A mother also plays with a little child, teaching him different things. This is the way He treats us, only we, being so “mature,” refuse to accept this game, this attitude, and do not wish to be His partners.

The Creator wishes to teach us what our nature is, what His nature is, and how we can transition from one to the other. Then once again He throws us into our nature and teaches us to rise to His nature again. This game continues time after time, thus teaching us to recognize Him, understand what His nature is like, what He wants from us, and the stages He uses to bring us closer to Him. We understand that He created our nature the way it is in order for us to attain the entire creation from two opposites.

However, we disdain this game, reject it, do not agree with it, and wish to come out of it. When a person understands that it is the Creator speaking with him and does not leave this course, things become easier for him. No matter what happens to him in life, he knows that everything comes from Above and he only needs to have the right reaction towards these things: to continue on the path without deviating.

It is very difficult to keep this mindset. The only way one can keep this attitude in understanding, sensation, awareness, and mutual work is when one is connected with others, when they support him and he supports them in mutual guarantee. One must not forget about it and always be connected to reality on this wave: “There is none else besides Him.” Anything being sent to me always pursues just one goal: for me to rise and become closer to Him.

We must learn this from life with the example of children. We only need to take into consideration the fact that they are given a means of instinctive preparation. Their inner calling pushes them to experience the world, learn from grownups, and enjoy the games we give them. We purposefully buy them building blocks, mosaics, and constructor sets for them to build, glue, and assemble things. And they instinctively enjoy this, but we do not. So, instead of instinct, we need to add efforts in understanding and awareness. We develop following this principle.

Our development consists of assembling ourselves like a construction set. And this is why from the beginning I am not able to last in this game without the support of others. This is the starting point: The Creator is willing to play with us if we decide to assemble the common mosaic. But if I forget about everyone, there is nothing to assemble. Then I am not even a part of the game yet, no matter how much I fuss. The game begins with readiness to unite.

We join the game the moment we grab on to this tendency, when we acknowledge and accept this approach.

And then fluctuation begins. A person can encounter difficulties, become disappointed, and lose understanding and drive, but all this happens within the framework of the game. No matter what happens, the thread towards unity always remains both in happiness or despair. The Creator presents us with these kinds of forms in this game.

We must always be prepared for it and remind each other that essentially, we are all standing before Him. Sometimes we are for and sometimes against, but we always interact with Him, whether in a positive or negative way. One way or another, by keeping this attitude towards the Source of everything that happens, we take steps towards attaining Him. We do not have another business: As we “press” on unity, we begin to reveal His form—from the simplest level. It’s like in a mosaic: We get a part of the common picture by putting together two or three fragments. We already know something: This must be a cloud, this must be grass, this must be a flower, and so on. In other words, we attain Him in certain things. And then we continue on.

This is what the correction of the broken Partzuf of Adam HaRishon consists of. We reconnect it, where everyone reconnects his piece of the common mosaic.

At the same time, one should not be ashamed of difficult questions and disturbances, or of anything in life. We see that if we manage to connect our entire life, all the crises and problems, from the most difficult to the lightest, to this game the Creator presents to us, everything suddenly adds up. Every part finds its place, and we see that “There is none else besides Him.” He is everywhere, working in very different forms. Sometimes He is behind, sometimes in front, sometimes in my life, and sometimes in the life of the world, in the group, and outside of it, in my feelings and mind.… I begin to recognize Him everywhere as the only Force that operates on different levels, and this way I gradually reveal Him.

The essence of the wisdom of Kabbalah is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings in this world by having us assemble His form. Is it possible to advance without starting with the smallest and easiest moves in this game so that we will gradually transition towards more serious and complicated moves? After all, this is what everything is about—to become closer to the Creator, to understand and feel Him better. When a person completes the “moment,” connects another obstacle or difficulty to the complete picture, then it is written regarding it: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are One.” Everything comes to me from the Creator, and then all the pieces in the group and the entire world will connect in my perception. This way I realize this principle of unity.

This way we grow and go through the “childhood years,” when we can unite only in Galgalta ve Eynaim, that is, in the light vessels, and then we come to more difficult desires. This is the path. We go through moments of despair, but they also need to be seen as a game, the game of life, which encompasses all the worlds, the entire reality. And then it will be easy because all the worlds are between us and the Creator—we play with Him at the place where we create unity together.
[71646]
From the Lesson #4 of the Arava Convention Lesson 2/24/12

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Here are some more pictures from the convention in the Arava Desert, February 23-25, 2012.

[Show slideshow]

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A person in a group should not only change himself in relation to the environment, but he should also teach others how to do it. This is the reason for the breaking. None of us has the strength to resist the egoistic intention, but when a person really realizes the need to change his intention to an altruistic one, he acquires a possibility to receive the strength from his neighbors, his friends. Suddenly this turns into a very simple principle: If you wish to unite with your friends in order to bestow to them, then you can receive the strength to change your intention from them, through this unity.

Essentially, we operate in one desire, in a single line: If I wish to bestow to my neighbor, then I can receive the strength to do it through him. But where does he get this strength? He receives it from the root, which stands behind it. This is why it is written: “I live in my people.” In other words, the Creator, the upper force, the root, which created the intention to bestow, lives in the group. He tells me: “If you treat your neighbor right in order to bestow to him, then you will find Me in your neighbor, in the exact point where your bestowal is directed. Then your intention will change, and you will really be able to realize it.”

It is written in regards to this action: “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are One.” This way we begin to see complete reality. Now instead of the corporeal world before me, I see the environment. And I do not care about what is in it. What matters is that on my search for the strength to bestow that I pass through it and attain the root, the Creator who exists within my friends. I want to unite with my friends in order to bestow to them; I find the Creator inside them, who provides the strength for me to connect with them, and then I unite with Him through them.

And then the person begins to work in two lines. On one hand he sees how the Creator impels him to use his neighbor; he sees different cruel thoughts that come to him from within the group about ways to use others, profit at their expense, and receive pleasure from the group. But in response to this direct pleasure, the person restricts his intention, and on the contrary searches for an opportunity to bestow to his friends while remaining in the same line. He wishes to use himself for the good and benefit of his friends and returns to the Creator through them, thus building the ten Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

Now the person has “two sides of the coin.” By comparing them and evaluating the degree to which he can use them, he becomes ready to accept the Creator’s invitation and develop the right attitude towards Him. Two realities open up before him:

• When I directly receive pleasure from the Creator through nature or the environment, if I am ready to continue receiving more and more of it, this kind of existence is perceived as “this world.”
• But if I bestow as much as I can and dedicate myself to my friends and the Creator, then I reveal another, opposite existence in the Reflected Light.

This way the person acquires two worlds.
[71254]
From the Arava Convention 2/23/12, Lesson #1

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Our reality is one, and everything depends on a person who perceives or reveals it. First we reveal just a small part of reality, this world. Then, as our vessels expand and our sensitivity increases, we feel an increasingly more complex and rich reality, called the Upper World.

How can we rise to the perception of a higher reality? After all, we are always talking not just about it, but about the person who receives, feels, reveals, and attains it. So how can we rise from the level of a regular person to the level of an attaining person?

The difference between the two lies in how sensitive they are to their reality. If we perceive it by means of just the vessels, qualities, and senses that we were born with, then we are living in our world, and we perceive our existence inside of it. If, however, we develop an additional receptivity within us, we will feel “an addition of reality.”

Kabbalists say that we can feel this addition if we begin treating our reality more sensitively, in a special manner. This is a special attitude – essentially, the realization of the importance and respect for the quality of bestowal which exists in the upper reality.

And that means we should care about just one thing: how can we begin to respect the quality of bestowal, how can we raise its importance in our eyes? This is why Kabbalists write articles, books, and letters for us, giving us different exercises and explaining how we should unite so that by virtue of various efforts, the upper reality, meaning the quality of bestowal, will become very important to us.

However, the main objective is not even this, but for us to see importance in the Source of this quality, the Upper Force, the Creator, the Root. When a person attaches importance to the Root, he begins to feel new phenomena. And then he understands what was happening to him before, his history.

It turns out that throughout all of his life, at every moment the Creator built this process for him and a person always properly progressed towards spiritual attainment, toward the development of new sensations. This is the only thing he was doing, although he did not know about it.

And now, in the present point, I have to understand that until this moment, everything was carried out by the Creator, and I have to be grateful to Him for the proper course and the impulses to move forward. But from now on, everything is up to me.

We know that we aspire forward correctly when we actually see that in the past, the Creator constantly pushed us forward in the right direction. And now, at every moment, we are in the state of choice.
[71884]
From the Arava Arvut Convention Lesson #5, 2/24/12

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Question: In the convention in the desert we wanted to receive such energy that would enable us to reach connection. I think we actually succeeded?

Answer: I think that the convention was special since we’ve achieved a certain level of adhesion, and the Reshimo (reminiscence) from it remain in us, in the whole group and in each of us individually.

What takes place in spirituality doesn’t disappear, and this Reshimo symbolizes the spiritual vessel among us. Everyone feels it to some extent, more or less, but this vessel already exists. It has already been born! But in such a way that we have to make some more efforts in order to clarify it, to reveal it, and to feel it more and more clearly.

We should relate to this general vessel as to the Shechina (Divinity), to the place for the revelation of the Creator. The stronger we connect, the more contentment we bring Him. Thanks to our connection, the connection of our desires, we can bring the Creator contentment and so we begin to feel the Light in our desires, and accordingly we will feel our spiritual ascent and the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.

We should be more sensitive, pay more attention, and treat more subtly the general feeling that was born inside us.

None of us should stop for even a moment in one place. It all depends on changing the intentions and not on the number of actions. This means that it depends on our attitude toward the connection and unity we’ve achieved.

We have achieved unity and have created a vessel, and now the question is: “What do we do with it now?” This is the most important thing: a qualitative change in our work with it. This is the clarification, the search for a permanent solution.

You will have to think about that yourself. If I tell you about it now, I will be stealing your exertion. It is like bringing a child a box with a Lego toy and then pushing him away and starting to put the Lego blocks together myself.
[71517]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/12, Shamati #35

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We must not be ashamed of weakness, thinking that weakness can cool our desire for advancement. There is a “gate of tears” on every step, which only opens after the realization of one’s own helplessness. And how could we even have the ability? After all, advancement happens through additional power of bestowal. We do not have it; we must acquire it.

This is why I am right to discover that I have no ability to advance. And I am also right to discover that I have no desire to advance. What happens next? Just one thing: the right appeal to the Creator through the group for Him to correct the connection between us is made. And then, each time this is done, a new stage of our unity becomes revealed.

A person is unable to do anything on his own. No matter how strong he sometimes thinks he is, no matter how certain he is that he will attain everything; he will fail at everything. It is written: “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die.”

This is why having a group, which constantly awakens the person, is a necessary condition. And for this reason, when a person does not know how to advance and becomes desperate the person’s pride is usually to blame, thus he is unable to receive support from the group.

There is nothing to be ashamed of here; the person just needs to work with it. But essentially, this is the only disturbance. There is an enormous strength in the group. Like in the tale about Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma. He was a great Kabbalist in his generation, and his students were very simple people. But he received a lot of strength from them since he knew how to work with them. And he was a great person! And this tale speaks of small people.

This is why when a person says that the Creator is not helping him, it is his pride speaking. How does it manifest? It is in his inability to cancel himself before the environment to receive the value and greatness of spirituality from it, and to then perceive the power of the Creator who helps him and the realization of the greatness of spirituality.

This is why there is no reason to cry over disturbances. It is written: “My soul shall weep in secret” in concealment, in darkness. Crying is good, but everything depends on what you are crying about: Do not cry over not having help; there is help. You need to cry over the fact that your pride is not letting you lower yourself a little before your friends, the Creator, and receive help from them.
[71614]
From the Arava  Convention 2/24/12, Lesson #4

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Question: I made all the effort to connect with my friends at the convention, but I failed. When it started raining in the middle of the night, I asked the Creator why He opens the skies but will not open my heart? It must be because I “did not ask for it”… So what should we do, continue these exercises or already understand that we are unable to connect on our own and must turn above for help?

Answer: How can you turn above for help if you have not yet become disappointed in your efforts? What if instead of becoming disappointed, you manage to connect?

Every moment you will continue becoming disappointed; these disappointments must open before you in the forms of your broken vessel. Disappointment is not given to torture you and make you creep on your knees to cry out with your last breath to receive help from the Creator. This is not the purpose.

It is a known fact that you cannot do it on your own, but you must gradually collect these disappointments to discover the depth of your desire this way. They show the depth of your spiritual vessel; this is why you cannot escape them. The Creator collects all your efforts and saves them until the day, the special state, when they all collect into one whole vessel.

It is like saving money in this life, adding a dollar at a time. In our spiritual life, you must also collect your disappointments, your failed attempts, and learn from the way they all add up. But you must keep all this inside you, and appear full of strength to the group.

You must be so meticulous and put so much effort into collecting your disappointments, like a small child putting money in his piggy bank. They will later give you the flavor because “the benefit of the Light is attained in darkness.” You gather and collect these dark moments, which at the end connect in all different forms into such darkness that you are able to distinguish the Light. Light itself does not have a form—just the vessel you build for it.
[71638]
From the Lesson #4 of the Arava Convention Lesson 2/24/12

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