Question: What is fear?

Answer: Fear is always the fear of losing something. After all, I am merely the desire to enjoy. What is this desire afraid of? It is that something it possesses will disappear from it or that it will not be able to achieve something to which it really aspires. Briefly speaking, it is a fear of losing.

Confidence counterbalances the ego, the desire to enjoy. This is confidence that I will not feel any lack, that I always exist within my friends, that I will always be satisfied with them in every regard, and that we will undoubtedly reach the upper Light that will fill us. Nothing will bother me once I rise above the ego.

We have to reach the quality of bestowal. The quality of bestowal is the sensation of absolute confidence. I do not feel any lack, and I no longer have any concerns, worries, or fears. This is the state of Hafetz Hesed (one who does not desire anything for himself), as in the parable about the righteous man who lives in the woods without even a shirt. He needs nothing.

In this case, I have no problems. I separate from my desire to enjoy. By doing this, I acquire confidence in the state of Hafetz Hesed. Why is confidence called the Light’s clothing? It is because the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) is the clothing for the Light of Hochma (Wisdom). This is exactly what I need. Another word for the Light of Hassadim is confidence. Separation from the ego, the degree of separation, is referred to as confidence.

The more I advance, the more my ego grows according to the principle of “he who is greater than his friend, his desire is greater than his.” Every time, I am given a greater ego, even greater concerns and worries. As I rise above this, I acquire a greater quality of Hesed. This means that I acquire greater confidence. I do not depend on my desire to enjoy. I am not concerned about losing or not attaining something.

When we attain spirituality, the degree of Hafetz Hesed, we stop worrying to such an extent that one even stops concerning himself with whether he will attain the upper Light. This is an absolutely opposite state: I wanted to attain the spiritual world so badly, to acquire the quality of bestowal; I thought that it would give me unlimited possibilities. Suddenly, I discover that I do not want anything. I am fine as is. Then, I begin to work with the ego in a different way.

We will speak about these advanced stages, but our first stop is to attain a state where I rise above everything that I now have, when I dissolve in the group. Then, I really do not feel any lack, and I can begin to reveal the upper Light.

What is the upper Light? It is a degree of one’s bestowal to the others, a concern for how much he fulfills others through himself, instead of being concerned with how much he receives and how fulfilled he is. It turns out that we begin to add another dimension over the level we have achieved by rising above our ego. How much will pass through me toward the others? How much stronger will we connect into our common Kli (vessel)? Everyone fulfills everyone else.

Try to think of it this way: No one is capable of this on his own, but it is possible through helping each other, as it is written: “They helped every one his friend.” This is the only way the spiritual vessel, the Kli, becomes revealed. It is in the interconnection, care, and help. This cannot happen in any person individually; he will not be able to feel the Light.

Individually, it is possible to separate from one’s ego and not desire anything. But when I rise to a state where I do not desire anything, what is the problem? What am I missing? I lack the connection with others for all the goodness, the upper Light, to stream through me to them. Then, the Light becomes revealed, passes through me, and I feel my bestowal to others. This becomes our common spiritual vessel because there is nothing within me, alone. It is only formed in the unity between us.

We already know that we need to work with these states of mutual sensations. We need to try a little bit more, just a little bit, and then it will happen. We must hold on to this state.

Right now, we are beginning: Everyone is trying to rise above himself and connect with others in heart and mind. We must invent a certain higher dimension where we all exist. We achieved this state in the Arava desert. We had this sensation. Now, we must achieve it again.

Let us try to do this: Everyone, rise and connect to the common desire, the common sensation, the common thought, hovering over us. Do not have the sensation of the body, rather let this “animal” live near us, like a dog near its master.

We have to be connected together in one common desire, confidence, where we exist above our ego. The Light of Hassadim that will fill us then is the Kli for clothing the Light of Hochma.
[62578]
From Preparatory Lesson, The World Arvut Convention 2011

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A spark of bestowal is attached to my huge ego, a tiny spark above this entire mountain. This spark is only there on condition that I raise it above the ego, that is, want my head to be in the clouds. So, how do I tear away from the egoism and be in this spark instead of being inside the huge ego, the traits, desires, habits, and upbringing that make up the whole of me?

Of course, this is impossible; everyone sees this. A person finds that he is completely incapable, yet he understands that he must achieve the purpose of life. He does not wish to die an animal! He wants to reveal the spiritual world, to attain the meaning of life, and to feel the entire universe. He does not agree to waste his entire life and die as an animal, with no reward, goal, knowledge, meaning, understanding, or love.

So, how can I break out of this cycle? I want all of this egoistically, but even so, I am unable to maintain these thoughts. Everyday life is burying me under its weight, and even egoistically it will not allow me to think about the spiritual reward, to look even slightly above this world.

It is written that “a prisoner cannot release himself from prison.” In other words, I am unable to pull myself up by the hair from the swamp that I am in. However, I must exert as much effort as possible and try to do this many times in order to understand that I must unite with the environment.

This is possible only on condition that I see that nothing can help me. I will continue to live this dog’s life until I die, devoid of any satisfaction, love or meaning, and without having achieved even one of my egoistic goals. Only if I try all possible means will I achieve such pain.

No special intelligence or ability is required, only stubbornness. As it is said: “Do whatever you want, but don’t leave.” You will reach complete disappointment in your strength and realize that only the group can help you. That’s your only hope. No one else can save you. Your refined feelings, mind, experience, education, money, and strength are nothing! You just need the group.

I see that I have done everything I could with my strength, money, mind, desires, traits, and habits. I have tried thousands of different things, and nothing has helped. I have completely lost hope in them. The only thing that remains is for me to change myself. Instead of everything I have, let the group come and fill me. Let it give me its desires, thoughts, intelligence, feelings, mind, and heart—everything! Let the group even transplant my organs; if I stay with what I have, I will end my life as an animal.

If I reach this kind of despair, this is the start of unification with the group. This great achievement comes only after completely despairing in my own strength. I can see that nothing helps. Thus, I am willing to rise above myself to the place where my friends are situated, to the heart and the mind of the group.

Now, everyone understands that nothing else can help him, and he must depend on the others. Mutual guarantee is our salvation. If the friends leave me, I am finished. It is as if they are holding me up over an abyss. If they stop holding me up, I will fall into it. I depend on them 100%. My spiritual life and death are in the group’s hands.

In this situation, a person certainly requires mutual guarantee and is willing to go for it. He is willing to pay for it with all the strength that he has. He is willing to give to the group, support it, and sacrifice everything just so that the group would hold him up.

It turns out that the individual spiritual life of every person depends on the group, and the group includes everyone. That is what we call mutual help. Everyone must give to the group, and this group must support everyone. This is the mutual guarantee.

Mutual guarantee does not exist among individuals. The group is a higher concept, not our interaction at our level.
[62144]
From Lesson 2, Arvut Convention in the Arava Desert 11/18/2011

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Just now we were able to reach unity. We made a great effort and this happened. But soon we will feel how difficult it is to hold on to this state. And that’s good because it means we are already great, strong, and can handle a more difficult task where as a result of my efforts, I do not attain everything, and instead I discover that I can’t do it.

I see that I cannot unite myself, the group and the Creator above all of the events that occur in my life. I seem to be confused, disoriented, and helpless, and unable to connect everything together the way we just did. The problems seem greater than my concentration, the force of my thought and desire. I seem to forget everything that happened during the Convention and cannot focus to reunite with the friends and to unite all of us with the Creator.

The problem is that among us, we do not sufficiently demand a connection with the Creator, with our root. But the goal of creation is to attain precisely the root, meaning His level. That is why the Creator sets up these situations for us where we cannot unite without Him, so we would need Him and understand that we can’t do anything without Him.

“Without Him” means without the Light that reforms, without Him appearing and revealing Himself. That is how we reach the need to reveal Him, to demand this.

Therefore, I ask of all the friends: If you have problems reaching unity and connection with the group, being in the same desire and sensation as at the Convention, and even increasing it more and more every day, then you have to write about this, discern it, and work on it.

We do not return to the same habitual routine between one Convention to the next. There is nothing habitual and customary. These states are given to us from above so we would increase the sensations and thoughts we had at the Convention by many times and would grow by virtue of them.

Now, thanks to our confusion and disorientation, I have to understand: The Creator has to help me and appear inside of our unity. In this form we reveal the upper force and exist inside of it.

That is, we have to see that there is none else besides Him, and we are involved in active interaction with none other than the Creator. All of the occurrences on the way, this entire world, including the most serious of problems, are relationships between us (all of us together) and Him, which He continually reveals to us in this special form. He wants for us to feel how we need Him and to want for Him to appear and give us the force to unite, to become revealed and to rule as the Light of AB-SAG, which discerns, corrects, and unites desires, and then becomes revealed inside of them.

This way, step by step, we realize the goal of creation, and I very much hope that we will get there.

At the Convention we were sure that we are going to a specific, clear goal – that we are attaining unity and revelation. We revealed this initial point and now we just have to keep developing it and be sure that these phases of development are standing before us like drops of semen, which we attained.

The goal of our entire work, of our unity is to reveal the Shechina between us. That is, to aspire for all of the gaps in which we feel repulsion, confusion, and separation from one another to be filled by Light.
[62832]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/11, Writings of Rabash

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In the spring we will hold a convention in America, and we have to aspire to make its level be no lower than the international Convention in Tel Aviv that just took place. I hope its level will be even higher. All countries have to join this Convention so we will feel that we are together.

Even if not everyone will be able to come to the United States to attend this convention and even if it will have much fewer attendees, yet by virtue of our unification and preparation, we will try to attain an even higher state. We have to work hard to get there.

A person has to see that from one day to the next, he benefits more and more in relation to the connection that we attained. The point of adhesion, the drop of unity that we attained must now expand similar to how a drop of semen inside of the womb begins to develop and form into a fetus, a future embryo. With each passing day, it develops more and more. That is how we should see ourselves.

An embryo grows by virtue of the “meat,” meaning the desires, thoughts, doubts, and problems that deliberately come to us at every moment according to the program of creation. But we ascend above all of these problems that become revealed and attach all of them to one point of unity. That is how we form the body of the embryo.

This is already the body of our soul. We must only add more and more flesh to it. Now we are starting to prepare for the spring convention in America where we will spend a few days together again. It doesn’t matter who will be able to attend physically and who will join virtually. We will work throughout the next few months to get to this convention internally united.

We will see the extent to which this world will lose its significance, its might of desire and power. And on the contrary, the force of our unity will be unlimited and no boundaries will be able to separate me from the friends. That is how we will attain greater and greater unity.

But this will happen on the condition that we will work on this constantly, day by day, making it our objective that our next state, the American convention will bring us to a very powerful unity. That is how we will place the current objectives ahead of ourselves, like milestones on the path, and will work on them.
[62839]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What can we do in order to never again return into this world?

Answer: When I strive to achieve a mutual sensation between us: unity, unification, solidarity, mutual guarantee; when everyone depends on everyone else, and everyone feels the common desire born between us because a new notion came into being, a spiritual Kli, the common desire to bestow; once I find it (it already exists), then I am born on the spiritual level.

As soon as I connect to it, I enter a new world. After all, in it, in this common desire, I reveal the Light that awakens and exists in it according to the law of equivalence of form: The Light only bestows, and this desire also exists in bestowal. The more friends connect to this desire, the more they strengthen it, and then the Light can be revealed more inside this desire.

This is why being born means to connect to our common desire that already exists. Many already feel it at this convention. And those who ask this question: “How can we be born?” must simply find this new reality, the common desire. This feeling will also remain after the convention, and will be developing in every one of us.

Friends will go home, become submerged in their problems, but the same feeling we have attained at the convention will return to them because this reality is already connected to him. And the purpose of all the confusion, descents, and everything that happens to everyone will only be to once again return him to the feeling of the common desire (heart). This way a person will develop time and time again: His ego will grow by turns, and he’ll acquire a greater connection with the common desire over it. It is similar to the way the heart beats in and out.

But right now we need the very first contact between us, and I am asking everyone to find it. We have the time for this, everything happens within a fraction of a second. Make an effort! I am very glad that we have come to this state. I feel that this place is filled with a common single desire that was created here. Connect to it; it invites everyone!
[62785]
From Lesson 7, The World Arvut Convention 12/8/2011

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Question: How should the group look at a friend who has the opportunity to go to the convention, but let his egoism stop him from going?

Answer: It’s unfortunate that a person would waste such an opportunity. He simply doesn’t understand what he is losing.

We must understand that for each one of us, the Creator provides certain circumstances. Within these circumstances, we must perform to the utmost of our ability.

Of course, one must weigh out the situation and make sure that he’s not going to lose his job, spend all of his savings to buy a ticket, or get into a conflict with his family. However, after sorting things out, if a person sees the opportunity to go to the convention but does not go, he is not applying the necessary effort for entering the upper world.

Such a person shouldn’t complain to us, to the Creator, or to anyone else. Most of the time, people like this leave us. They try to justify themselves by blaming us and our method, and ultimately, they leave.
[62365]
From Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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Question: It is said: “The end of an action is in its initial thought.” Can you draw us a picture of the end of the last day of the convention, a complete whole picture, with the Machsom (barrier)?

Answer:

I have nothing else to say.

It will be mutual guarantee fully realized between us, when we discover the system of mutual interconnection between the souls. It is already instilled in us, and we only have to discover it at its smallest level. This will be enough in order to enter the first spiritual degree and to start bestowing the Light upon the world. Thanks to this, other people will also begin to discover the wires of mutual connection between them, and so we will heal the whole world. Humanity will stop its hard and steep fall and will immediately see that there is a solution.

This is because the current crisis is actually a great opportunity to rise, and people will feel that immediately. The system of mutual connection will be revealed between them, and they will understand where the solution lies and why all this is happening.

I really hope that this is what will happen. On our part we have to add only the intention: We want to realize all that in order to become equal to the upper force, in order to repay the Host with the same goodness He wants to give us.
[62256]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/1/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Question: Today, the New York group will be disseminating on Wall Street. How can we use this action to feel that we are “one?”

Answer: We must help each other and be together with them in our thoughts. I am very glad that there is a very strong core who always work on Wall Street. I hope that the other groups around New York and individual students will soon join this action, and that they will all unite in the end.

I hope that they will get together for the convention and will participate together with us in the same activities, forgetting all differences and personal animosity. Everything needs to be left aside as if it does not exist. However, do not cancel it out. Simply rise above the animosity, separate from it, and make a restriction over it.

During a tsunami, an earthquake, or a big fire, all the animals run together, and none of them would attack another. The main objective is escaping true death. Now, we must act the same way. Forget all the disagreements, get together, and join the convention events.

Participating in dissemination of our materials is the most important thing. We will be elevated from Above only and only by making the world understand that it needs us. If the world does not need us, we will not budge; nothing will happen with us.
[62356]
From Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/27/2011

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Question: We are approaching the final lap before the convention. How do we maintain the intention?

Answer: First of all, we are not parting; we are all together. From today on we should prepare to the maximum for unification; we should give rise to unity and live in it now. Unlike a lesson at school, the convention does not begin at the ring of a bell. It’s already hovering above us, and our friends all over the world are already breathing it. We need to prepare ourselves more and more. We should exert effort toward unity, and each day should be an achievement for us just like in the desert of Arava.

Of course, there will also be descents. Never did we have a successful first day at a convention. Even after the burst of emotions at the cultural program, people didn’t want to come back the next morning. And this is good. It cannot be any other way.

So let’s hope that over the next few days we will undergo the whole necessary preparation, including the mess, rejection, and resentment so that then the three days of the convention will fill us with inspiration and unity. Let’s save time, we have all the necessary means for that. This time we have performed an immense preparation, internal one in particular.

The key is confidence. Let each person hold up his friend—otherwise the common Kli will fall into parts. Grab onto each other and don’t let go.
[62403]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/2011, “The Peace”

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Question: You have said that we are in the process of spiritual birth. How do we complete this birth, and once it is completed, how do we hold on to this state and contribute to further development?

Answer: The process of birth includes two forces: the force of the fetus itself and the force of its mother. The external force pushes to birth, and the inner force connects in one desire. Then, we are ready to be born.

What is born from us is our one, common, whole desire to perceive the reality that already exists between us, but is concealed by our egoism. Kabbalah is called the secret wisdom because it reveals what is concealed from us.

We need external forces to push us in order to reveal it. Either nature serves this function, or we create this pressure by creating our environment. It is preferable for the female part of our gathering to provide us with the external pressure so that we, the male part, would be obligated to unite. All our private aspirations to reveal the higher reality will turn into one aspiration.

Then, we will reveal this reality and be born into a new world similar to the way we are born in our world. I can feel by the questions, desires, thoughts, the common flow, spirit, and mood that the participants of our convention are beginning to feel this reality that has appeared over us.
[62739]
From Lesson 7, The World Arvut Convention 12/8/2011

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