Question: Studies show that a person learns more when he gets incentives and rewards and not punishments. So why do we feel that the Creator educates us by punishments?

Answer: An undisciplined child doesn’t want to make any efforts or to receive rewards. He prefers to be idle despite the threats and punishments.

I, for example, was very stubborn as a child. I didn’t want to study what was taught in school. I didn’t find it interesting. So I received many punishments, but still refused to dedicate time and effort to something that I didn’t like. I read and learned a lot, but only things that interested me and not what was taught in school. Despite the punishments, I didn’t give up because the freedom to do what I wanted was more important. So I paid a double price: I didn’t get a reward and I was punished.

We too are in the same situation. First, we have to give up our ordinary life. Well, this isn’t such a big problem because today’s world is preparing us for that. Second, we have to give up our egoism, our “self,” the familiar reward: self-fulfilment. Our reward should be the opposite, the opportunity to fill others, and this is much worse than the school curriculum.

In the meantime, I don’t feel any punishments for not bestowing upon others, and of course, don’t see any reward in giving everything to others. So who would agree to such a thing?

Why did people come here from all over the world? Why did they give up their holidays and their convenience? Why did they spend so much time and money? A person is given an initial urge to connect, and then he has to respond to that call and not to miss it, to work with this initial desire.

Imagine how much money, time, and effort our friends have invested in order to fly here. Now they have to examine the situation in the following way: “Everything that I did until now wasn’t really done by me because there is none else besides Him. The Creator brought me here and has transported me thousands of kilometers. And now after I have received the urge from Above, I have to worry about how to add myself to Him.”

The more efforts a person makes in order to come here, the more important it is for him to add himself because otherwise he will not bring his “self” into it. It means that the Creator has taken him “by the ear,” put him on a plane, and brought him to the convention.

The upper governance is everywhere, so where is the “self?” It is the same “self” that has to reveal the Creator and to participate in His actions. It isn’t easy to add myself to them, but it is here that I have the chance. Thereby I reach the Absolute Good. After all, the Creator has brought me to this special action, and now I, on my part, have to become special as well.
[61972]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/28/2011, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Question: Will we be able to reach a permanent spiritual degree at the convention?

Answer: If not a permanent degree, we can reach a temporary spiritual degree at the convention. It will give us Reshimot (reminiscences) and create a particular spiritual picture inside of us that we will be able to seek later by arousing it over and over again and shaping it inside us.

Thus, it is necessary to wish for at least a temporary understanding of the next degree of creation, our next state, to form it inside us. The permanent state will come later. That is not a problem. A clear understanding of what to aim for will be formed in a person already.

It is possible to reach a permanent spiritual state. Everything depends on our common desire. If we want to, everything is possible!

A person’s location at the time of the convention is not important. If he can’t come for reasons beyond him, such as a lack of money, job, family, and so forth, it doesn’t matter.

Try being with us during that time at all our events. We will be open for you 24 hours a day. Even if we go to sleep for some time, you still are going to see an empty room and a few dozen people who are preparing it for the morning lesson. That doesn’t matter; be with us!

Everything that we study will be uploaded immediately to the website. Those people who can’t be with us in real time will be able to watch, listen, and relive our events immediately. We will do everything physically so that you can be with us, and you will do everything to be with us internally, spiritually. You can count on our support.

In fact, all the lessons that I give now, all our studies, are aimed toward convention preparation. It should warm, gather, and shape us up so that in those 72 hours we would simply “solder” together and reveal the upper world in that weld.
[61834]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/6/2011

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Our spiritual vessel lacks capacity because we are afraid of the two opposite states: hatred and love. We avoid hatred and don’t want to feel it. The defense mechanism of the body doesn’t even allow us to truly hate.

And in general, we are afraid of hatred. Indeed, it is written that we need to love the friends, and yet we suddenly discover that we hate them. We don’t even want to think about it! Therefore, we block these questions that arise within us.

And love, for what do we need it? I don’t feel the need to love them. I can get along without it. I don’t let myself reach these two extreme emotions. And it’s possible to reach them only after investing much effort.

If I don’t invest in a child, he is growing up by himself somewhere in the yard, and I think to myself: “Well, what will be will be.” And then afterwards, when they put him in jail, I mutter to myself: “Well, what can be done?”

But if I invest efforts with him, from day to day, placing demands in front of him and worrying from the bottom of my heart about everything that happens to him, then I am filled with both love and hate. They both create the capacity in me for great worries. Everything depends upon my investment.

So what should be done if we want to arrive at the approaching convention with a big and expanding vessel? We once went on an excursion to the mountains in the north of the country, and it was almost impossible to climb the mountain without each other’s help. This is a very good exercise. Even games like these that seem “childish” help us to feel the togetherness between us. But now, before the convention, each one must search for how to invest his strengths as much as possible in what the group is doing.
[61510]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, TES

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Remarkable participation of the ARI Institute in an international seminar on women

Members of our ARI Institute, Rachel Laitman and Norma Livne, were selected by the Millenia 2015 international project among hundreds of candidates from all over the world to participate in the seminar “Women Actors of Development for the Global Challenges” that took place in Paris, France on November 21, 2011.

The conference was organized by The Detree Institute, a European non-governmental research centre for regional development. 50 women representatives of universities, scientific institutions, international organizations, and economic and social bodies from 17 countries gathered for the event at the Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation, Ecole des Mines, Paris, considered the equivalent of Harvard University for research on economics, science, and sociology.

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The world needs to unite and is looking for a way to do so. In the meantime, unity seems unfeasible to it.

We see that Europe cannot unite: Different conflicts and new cold wars are going on there, only to keep the people busy somehow, to distract them. Lots of various egoistic motives arise, and people need to overcome them, yet they don’t understand or feel that.

Undoubtedly, it is important to set some kind of an example for the world and to introduce the altruistic force into it.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we exist in the one and only desire that was created. We are a certain part of that desire, and if we fill this part with the attribute of bestowal, it will begin to spread gradually to all other souls, people, societies, counties, and cultures.

We are all connected to one another, and what happens in one part in the world “infects” its other parts virtually. Our unification includes a great number of students from all the continents, nations, races, religions, and different mentalities. Since we are a great mass of people who are aimed precisely at a certain goal, we certainly make up one big, strong whole.

When, for example, our friends in New York go out to the streets, we see that people meet them with interest and ask questions and that university professors bring their students to talk with them and to learn about what our friends offer. This means that we are a strong influential group that has its own goal, outlook, and idea based on serious scientific data and not on mysticism or different beliefs. This group actually penetrates the different levels of humanity and gradually shapes it according to its own form.

We should definitely reinforce our dissemination because the world is about to collapse. Undoubtedly, we will eventually reach a state when people will begin to listen to us. We can already see that.
[61706]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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There is a certain unification, preparation, that only men can carry out if they detach themselves from their families, from the women, and seclude themselves. When you go beyond the boundaries of our world and exist only in unity with the friends, this produces a special prayer, special sensations. We felt it. It is really so, and it cannot be described in any other way.

Women’s preparation is not in order to connect themselves, but to help the men to do that, to try to create all the necessary conditions for it, and to quietly push them towards connection. Women can help men overcome their ego and reach unity.

By the way, our women, all over the world, understood this point very well. They supported us and I am grateful for that. Their support was felt throughout the Arava convention, and by that they performed a great service for us.

The December convention already entails the state of standing at the foot of Mt Sinai, where there are women, children, and the elderly. However, the foundation is the men, 600,000 souls, not by their quantity, but might.

In the wisdom of Kabbalah everything is measured by its power because Kabbalah talks about uniting into one general desire. This one mighty desire is expressed as the number 600,000, which symbolizes the power of our unity. To rise to the level of 600,000 means to reach the complete revelation of the upper force, the Creator.

I hope that we will attain it because we have all the prerequisites for that. At least we are doing everything that is in our power. The whole world also needs what we are doing, and it is thanks to this that we receive support from Above. We succeed not because we are so special and talented, but because the world needs a group that will lead it forward.
[61708]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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The decisive week before the convention has arrived. These are special days preceding the reception of the new state. In order to demand the new state, we need to correctly prepare ourselves, to feel sure that we will receive it, and to be ready for it. And then it will happen.

Everything depends on us. The opportunity is given to us, everything is ready, and it depends only on our desire, on how successful we will be in demanding this.

We hope that we will join our forces and succeed in reaching a cry. Essentially, this is all we need, nothing more. The other half will come from Above.

Therefore, there is no need to go all the way and try to be nice in order to do it all by ourselves. We can’t be nice, we only need to want it to happen.

Half is already easier. We only have to think about this: how to make an effort and to cry out. And after that, the upper force will come. We only need to draw the boundary and understand where our part ends. This will make it easier for a person to prepare for the first revelation of the Creator.
[61881]
From the Talk During the Meal 11/25/2011

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Question: Why do I face so many obstacles to attending the convention? Maybe I’m not ready for it yet?

Answer: Obstacles are put before you on purpose. In “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” there is an example about how we climb the mountain where the castle of the Creator stands. The higher you climb, the more roughly the guards push you away and throw you down; you have to clamber up again. This continues until you make enough effort and finally overcome the obstacles.

You will suddenly see that the obstacles did not really harm you. They merely awakened a true desire in you. This is like a flirt, when the desired distances away from you and thus fires an even greater desire. This exists at all levels of fulfillment. That is, to come into contact with the Creator, you must reach a true desire.
[61840]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/6/2011

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Question: What is the psychological change that we have to go through?

Answer: The transition to feeling the upper world is merely a psychological change that a person goes through. He still feels our world, he continues to live as usual. Nothing disappears or escapes him. He remains an ordinary person: in the family, at home, at work, and everywhere. Yet in addition, he receives an “inner snap,” a change of phase that enables him to start feeling another quality existing in our world: the quality of bestowal.

This attribute is much higher than the attribute of reception on which our world is based because it is unlimited, infinite, and perfect. It is free! It is omnipotent! Thus it is called “the Creator.”

The attribute of bestowal keeps our world and nourishes it like a mother, including our egoism, our attribute of reception. Everything in our world: the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature, all of them, are attributes of receiving. We, being the attribute of reception ourselves, perceive only these types of egoistic existence.

When we acquire the attribute of bestowal, we begin to feel totally different forces, fields, and attributes, which are much wider and more sublime than our world.

When we enter the field of bestowal and begin to feel it, then our whole world, cosmos, and the entire universe immediately shrink to a minimal dimension. Everything outside of our world begins to feel truly infinite and unlimited, like the attribute of bestowal itself. We feel that we live in it and develop along the 125 degrees that we study about in the wisdom of Kabbalah.

I hope we will reach this state in the coming convention. It all depends only on the preparation of the people who will assemble there. Even if accidental people with minimal egoistic desire or beginners who don’t really understand what they came for participate in this gathering, they will not disturb us.

The main point is that if we, all the active members of the Bnei Baruch movement and the friends from overseas, will gather together and all those who will not be able to come will connect to us virtually, then we will easily be able to incorporate into ourselves all the new visitors and those who just happened to be there, and they will participate in this connection involuntary. We are the key, the core, and the principal part of this great connection for the attainment of the upper one.
[61710]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Right now we are on the threshold of great unification: the December convention. To prepare for it, we need to constantly worry about our connection, about revelation of a common desire between us. To the extent that this desire will truly be common, we will be able to feel the spiritual force in it. After all, unanimity of desires creates the condition, the so-called “vessel,” the Reflected Light, the screen, because we connect together against our ego.

The more egoistic we are in the relationships between us, the more each one puts pressure on himself in spite of his ego and requests for the Light to influence him and help him connect with others, the stronger the screen and the greater the force of overcoming is that we activate to rise above the ego that separates us and pushes us apart from each other.

This common force of overcoming, referred to as the force of mutual guarantee, becomes our common force. The Creator created the forces of rejection between us purposefully, as it is written: “I created the evil inclination,” and we feel how we repulse each other. But we try to overcome these forces of rejection through our common actions and our study so as to attract the Light that Reforms, as we wish to connect despite the forces that constantly push us away from each other like little demons between us. We must prevail over these evil forces and connect.

To the extent that we try to be together as hard as we can so as to eliminate all the differences between our desires, thoughts, and actions and to truly be like one man with one heart, to that extent we reveal that only we can help each other acquire this common aspiration for connection, as it is written: “Man will help his neighbor.”

Then in this common aspiration we discover that we are not able to connect. But we already uncover our common desire to unite, instead of individual separate desires to connect with others. This common desire is called the prayer of many, a common prayer. And then our request for the Light, the Creator, rises specifically out of this common prayer. And help from Above comes only in response to these mutual efforts, which means that it comes from within, from unity above our degree. This is called MAD, the correcting Light that creates a connection between us despite the forces of rejection.

These rejecting forces are called “Aviut” (the thickness of desire), and the forces of connection are called the “screen.” These two forces together, which we form to bestow to a higher degree, the Creator, are called the Reflected Light since we wish to be exactly like the Light that has corrected us, that is, we wish to bestow. And then we realize the condition under which the Creator, the Giver, becomes revealed in us.

We complete all these stages only with the help of the Light that Reforms. This Light may shine on us even when we do not ask anything of it, like an infant who does not know why he is screaming, but he is taken care of. Alternatively, we can begin to distinguish what exactly it is that we need, and then our prayer becomes more directed and thought over. Or we really consciously raise our request in the right direction, knowing clearly that we demand the ability to bestow to the upper degree.

But everything is done by the Light that Reforms. To tell you the truth, what could be better than constantly reading The Zohar and doing all these actions…This is the ideal state. But reality is such that man must go to work, go about his daily business, and then come for a few hours and raise his prayer. At first he collects different problems, desires, aspirations, and hopes within him, and afterwards he comes to The Zohar. And then we connect together and raise our common prayer through studying together.
[61527]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, The Zohar

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