In order to prepare for the convention in the best possible way, it is necessary to go over the talks we had at the convention in the Arava desert. Clearly, we will still have interesting talks and events, where we will continue to develop our common aspiration towards one single desire to bestow, which consists of a multitude of little individual aspirations and mutual help. A person really needs to watch everything attentively and feel it well.

It is recommended to become acquainted with the songs, the program of the convention, and the materials we will study ahead of time. Simply read the specified materials, watch clips, and join the common preparation. If you are coming with an entire group, you can work on these elements of unity together.
[61621]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Question: What actions at the convention will help focus on the goal in the best possible way?

Answer: When people are internally aspiring to unity, they almost don’t express it on the outside. They can stand, hug, sing, do something together, but they don’t express on the outside what they feel inside. The inner work is the most intense one.

Therefore, you have to decide for yourself where it is better for you to be, with whom, and how. Certainly, you should try to be together with the mass, both with your body and soul. However, if this is an obstacle for you, if it’s hard because of your age or health, you can stand aside and not participate physically in the activities. This is not so important. What is important is that all the time you are trying to feel the highest point of unity with others and within it, the upper force that exists and becomes manifested in this point.
[61613]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Question: How should we work before the December convention in order to deliver our message to the masses? Should we intensify the dissemination on the Internet, or should we focus more on internal work on unification?

Answer: Of course, we should work on the Internet so that as many people as possible from around the world will know about the convention.

On the other hand, when we get to the convention, we will have to worry about the world in a different way: through the network of our internal interconnection. At the convention I should forget about the Internet, about everything I left behind. My whole attention is focused on the friends who are here physically or are connected to us through virtual channels. In our network, we should manifest the connection and in it, reveal the image of man similar to the Creator, the vessel of Adam. Then the upper force will be revealed to us.

This vessel is called Arvut (mutual guarantee). After all, its attribute is reciprocity, mutual reinforcement, interconnection, and mutual care so that no one falls out from the common circle.

Imagine that we are standing on some sharp spire. If we don’t hold each other’s hands and don’t keep the general balance, we will all fall. We are like petals, surrounding the stem of a flower. It is enough for one of us to lose his balance and let go of someone’s hand, and all the petals will “fall.” This is the feeling of mutual guarantee.

Question: What is that “sharp spire?”

Answer: It is the Creator’s supportive force that manifests if we are connected. In the connection among us we find the One.
[61535]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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When we try to connect, we start feeling that we lack some kind of help from Above because we cannot do it on our own. We can neither connect nor synchronize our movements, but this revelation gives us knowledge of the One Who can do this for us. It can only be the upper force!

And then we reveal the need for the upper one and the place in which He has to act in us. It always works this way in the spiritual world: I work, applying more and more effort, and at the end I reveal a “minus.” And from this minus I discover the “plus” that possibly has what I lack.

I always reveal a lack, a vessel, a desire, and against it I reveal the power, the Light, which can do what I couldn’t. No matter how much I tried, I didn’t manage. So I arrive at the conclusion that I’m unable to do it, but at the same time I see Who can.

That’s why our movements always start off in the negative direction and cause disappointment, tiredness, and anger in us. From the experience of our whole life we can’t understand how this can be. In our egoism we always used to act differently: He who makes an effort wins, succeeds, and receives a reward.

And about the spiritual world it is said: “I labored and found,” and not that I “won,” “earned,” or “stole.” This means that I didn’t achieve this using my own power when I start an action and finish it.

Here it works differently. Thanks to my efforts I reach a certain limit, when nothing turns out right and I fall into despair, leave it, and don’t want anything, feeling completely disappointed, and only then, if I move one millimeter ahead, I reveal that there is a force that can do this!

And this force hides itself deliberately, until I reach a state of total despair. Baal HaSulam writes in his letter: “There isn’t a happier moment in a person’s life than when he reaches the limit of his own powers and sees that there is no success” as only then can he raise a prayer and cry out. He will know Who he has to address—only then will it be revealed to him.

Furthermore, he knows that he doesn’t have a choice: He must cry out. And in reality, nothing more is required but this cry.
[61231]
From Lesson 2, Arvut Convention at the Arava Desert 11/18/2011

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The first person to reveal the secret of life was Adam. Just like us, Adam was searching for the meaning of his life. After his revelation, this secret began to spread from generation to generation, until it reached our time.

We develop constantly and our desire grows steadily. Since each new generation that came was new and possessed a greater desire for pleasure, it was able to add something to the method of revealing the secret of life.

On one hand, this is a very simple thing, and on the other, it’s incredibly difficult. It’s simple because it’s close to everyone, and it’s difficult because it lies beyond our capabilities. It’s as if the Creator stretches out a rope for us to jump over and then puts a wall right behind it, making it impossible to jump.

The thing is that all a person has to do is apply effort, and the Creator will complete the action. Moreover, the person’s action and the Creator’s action have to be synchronized with the group or the environment.

It is very difficult to connect these three components because they each seem to be turning in their own direction and performing their own movements. However, when they actually do come to unite due to the effort on all three parts, this is called “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.”

A person called “Israel” (straight to the Creator), meaning he who wishes to attain the Creator, acts in accordance with his soul’s root and the program of creation. He overcomes his nature and wishes to act in sync with his environment, which happens to be a collection of individual movements that are in motion together.

The Creator has His own movement. After all, He governs everything. He has a predetermined plan that leads everything toward one goal. For this reason, it’s very difficult to connect all three components into a single point where the initial contact with the upper one occurs. This contact is called adhesion.

Adam was the first person to reveal the method of obtaining unity with the upper one. Clearly there are no coincidences in life, and it was no coincidence that he was called Adam (“similar” to the Creator), although his parents weren’t aware of why they named him as such. He was the first person to reveal the correct method of revealing the Creator.

If we connect all three components into a single point, then through that point we begin to see a different reality. We bring things into focus, similar to when one gets an eye exam, where the three lines in the optical device have to connect in order to see anything. Therein lies our work.
[61237]
From Lesson 2, Arvut Convention at the Arava Desert 11/18/2011

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Question: You spoke about the importance of the last three days before the December convention. What is the best way to organize preparation during these days?

Answer: There is a notion of three days of transition from one state to another. During these three days, one must leave the past state and from a neutral state gradually transition into a new one.

This is why we really advise people, who wish to properly connect to the convention (essentially, convention is our unification), to try to keep this thought, this feeling, to be in anticipation of general unity, especially within the three preceding days. This will help them experience unity with higher intensity and reveal at least a part of the upper world in it for themselves. This is exactly what we expect from our mutual action.

A convention is not a regular event when we gather, sing, attend lectures, dance, and participate in the gatherings of friends. A convention is first and foremost our uniting into a single desire of mutual bestowal. Once we form this desire, we will immediately feel the next level of our development in it, which exists beyond our world. Essentially, this is what we aspire to.
[61618]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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Spiritual work, the revelation of successive movements, one by one, from the “minus” (what I lack) to the “plus” (the one who can help me) is not easy at all. It seems irrational from the outside. No matter how much we advance, we always forget about that because our egoistic feelings and mind are not built on this principle.

Everything is arranged differently in spirituality. I make efforts and find a completely different place. I get disappointed, reach total despair, and the moment after that, if I do not run away, then I find. And I find something that I absolutely did not expect and didn’t think that this should get.

The spiritual world that we discover has no analogue in our world. A tiny hole like the eye of a needle opens, like a small pupil in our eye, a focused view that requires nothing else. And through it, we break into a new world!

The Creator, the Light of Hochma (Wisdom), opens this hole, and we expand it. This hole is created by everyone compressing their egoism to zero, and all our points in the heart connect together. Having united, these points burn the wall, the boundary between us and the spiritual world. If they unite, they turn into the point through which we enter the spiritual world.

This is why we have gathered here to try to achieve this condition when “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” join together. It is necessary that everyone reaches the same frequency and sways together, everyone with only one thought, the unity of our points in the heart, above our ego, above this corporeal life.

We have the right to forget about this corporeal life once for 24 hours, disconnect from all the worries, and wait for the upper force that sustains this life to come and meet us. By our desire, we will force it to get closer to us.
[61227]
From Lesson 2, Arvut Convention at the Arava Desert 11/18/2011

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You have probably heard that the Ari once told his students: “If we go up to Jerusalem today, we will be able to reach the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun). Let’s get together in an hour and go up there, let’s continue this way!”

When the students began to assemble after an hour, one of them said that he couldn’t come for one reason, another for another reason, another’s wife wouldn’t let him go, and another couldn’t go because of the children, or because of some illness or some other problems. And so they didn’t ascend to the state of Gmar Tikkun.

We don’t understand how such interruptions could have stopped the Ari’s students from reaching the exalted state of Gmar Tikkun. But we also don’t understand what obstacles are given to a person from Above so that he will draw closer to correction.

We are neither the strongest nor the most special. We are actually the weakest of all the generations that preceded us. But we are living in very special times, and these times require a great correction, which is possible to carry out! Therefore, even if we are not worthy of it, even if we are not strong enough or don’t really understand what we are doing, the upper force still connects us and pushes us forward.

So we mustn’t forget what we have to do. We should try as hard as we can! And the Creator will finish this job for us.
[61180]
From Lesson 1, Arvut Convention at the Arava Desert 11/18/2011

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Question: How do we need to unite with each other before the December convention? How do we prepare for it to experience everything the right way?

Answer: We do not do anything different: We read the same articles, we hear the same things, but still, it is written: “It has to be like new in your eyes.” Why is it said, “like new”? Because you renew it by revealing your Aviut, your new details of perception, more and more.

We know that when we are served a new dish, we have no idea how to approach it. But once we have tasted it plenty of times and become accustomed to it like to “our mother’s cooking” which has been familiar to us since childhood, then we can enjoy its taste to the maximum.

The same happens in the spiritual Partzufim. The first time the Light enters, it is nothing else but the Light of Nefesh. The second time it is already the Light of Ruach that enters the same old Reshimot (informational genes), the third time it is the Light of Neshama, and so on.

In other words, every time man advances, he returns to what he has already experienced and discovers a greater depth, feels more flavor in it, as it is written: “You will eat what has long been laid in store for you.” It is the same with us. Every time, in the same place, but only deeper and deeper, we have to be more connected with one another, more unified and directed towards a true connection.

Let us hope for this and raise our prayer so it would become a “prayer of many,” in mutual guarantee.
[61524]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, The Zohar

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Question: We have finished the Arava convention with an obligation between friends to maintain the mutual sensation attained at the convention.

Answer: I think everyone is trying to remain in the state that we experienced in our common unity. Everyone will remember it at least from time to time and maybe even constantly. The Light will shine on a person from Above, and he will remember and awaken. And at the end, he will receive an external awakening to return to the same state that he experienced at the convention. He will not do it on his own, but it will happen through the common awakening, the Light that will come from Above, from the Creator.

It is a pleasant state, and this is why it is worthwhile for him to return to it. Naturally, it is still an egoistic aspiration to feel good in this shining, exalted state. But this already comes from a proper action that originates from unity and is directed towards it.

Question: How do you work with this mutual obligation during the lesson?

Answer: Right now we only must be aware of: “Why am I doing this? Is it because I was in an elevated state? Then naturally, I wish to be in it all the time and even more than that. Am I only doing this to feel good, with respect to myself, because this is important to me?”

It is true that we have experienced a special elevation, desire, and phenomenon that we have never felt before. But how do I perceive this entire state? Do I perceive that it benefits me, makes me feel good, confident, and comfortable? Or do I want to transfer it to higher rails, to desire it for other reasons than it making me feel good or giving me pleasure.

I want for this sensation to come from the realization of its higher value without any connection to me. This is because when it comes to my egoistic connection, whatever fills me more has more value for me. But I want to appreciate this state because this sensation of bestowal is a higher sensation that comes from the upper force, and this way I become close to the Creator. At this moment I do not have any feelings for it, I do not see any importance or value in it, but I want to see it!

Now we begin to think about another reason to experience the same state that we attained at the convention. I want to feel it because this brings me closer to the Creator, to a higher degree. I do not wish to feel too much satisfaction from it. It is not that I reject it, but I do not want it to obligate me. I want for the greatness and importance of the actual state of bestowal to obligate me.

This way we begin to change degrees. That is, I want to rise from the degree that I am on right now, in my current desire, where I feel good and thus, wish to remain there because it is not a desert, but something beautiful and pleasant—a land full of life. However, I want to experience the desert for my ego and feel fulfilled in my desire to bestow, my aspiration towards the group, the Creator. This is referred to as wandering through the desert.

For this reason, we must now try to change the basis and the cause of the wonderful sensation of unity that we attained at this convention, where we had no foreign influence. And then we already begin to rise towards a different, more spiritual attitude towards the group, fulfillment, our inner sensation, and the past state.

We raise ourselves towards a different state when we are no longer influenced much by moods or different factors. I begin to be more connected with the actual importance of the state of bestowal. This is the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) already awakening in me, and a spiritual degree is shining on me slightly. I try to separate from my ego, from how much I feel in it, whether I feel better or worse, one way or another; I wish to separate from its outcomes, fulfillments, and values. I do not want it!

I want that wonderful, strong, and good sensation to remain. I do not neglect it, I only wish to perceive it in my attitude, which instead of coming from my desires to receive, comes from my desires to bestow and my intention to direct everything towards unity.

There are many inner sensations, calculations, and manifestations in this. But the Light of correction is already awakening these states over us. And then man begins to receive the so-called Light of faith, a force that keeps you above your ego, above all its inner calculations. And then we enter the actual work with the force of fulfillment, calculations, and attitude. This is already the beginning of analysis.
[61316]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, The Zohar

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