Question: During the lesson I am constantly thinking about the upcoming convention and it’s hard for me to focus on the lesson. Am I losing something as a result of this?

Answer: Of course not. We always feel the pressure in the process of preparing for such massive events. Once a year we get together at a convention in the United States, and we should see this as a unique opportunity to unite with each other. There is no other opportunity to receive more Surrounding Light, support, and strength to advance than at gatherings such as this.

This is exactly what I personally expect. I remember how when I began studying with Rabash, literally a few months later we traveled to Tzfat together. In a small yard by a little house, all of Rabash’s students gathered who had studied with him at different times and suddenly they wanted to join us. About 40 people gathered, which was a pretty big group before I brought new students to him.

I saw how excited he was by this trip and by being there. I asked him, “What is so special about it?” He explained that these gatherings are the most effective means in our world for spiritual advancement when a person comes in order to unite with others, works for this sake, makes efforts, and desires to receive the forces from others, to gather and absorb them inside of him, to literally drink up this might. And this depends only on him and his sensitivity.

If I prepare for the convention the right way, then when I come there, I receive everything I possibly can. It all depends on me. It is because we are standing in front of Infinity. I can come to the convention and not receive anything, scorning others, and leaving there even colder than before. Or I can come there and be impressed, touched, and inspired. I can absorb so much strength and Surrounding Light that I wouldn’t receive during years of study. Everything depends on my preparation.

Therefore we must already be preparing for the upcoming convention. Before such a huge event, when a person is planning to connect with others, he must experience worry and fear, feeling that he is standing at the threshold of great inner changes. This pressure-filled expectation and preparation is even felt physically.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/8/11, The Zohar

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The whole world today from small to big is in need of an educational method. And it’s more difficult to get to the adults than to the children. I hope that the mass media will change and we will find additional ways besides television and Internet sites to enable our method to be accepted in the world.

On the other hand, we are building the necessary mechanisms for children and in this realm we can quickly achieve clear, demonstrative success. After all, this is a very painful topic for parents, departments of education, and overall, for every society. The young generation is literally “seeping through our fingers” and no one knows what to do about it.

That is where we can show clear examples of what is happening to our children at Bnei Baruch. They want to be with their parents, which is a very strange thing indeed. At the age of 15 to 18, a young man is next to his parents, and it’s not because he is retarded. It’s just that he wants to adopt the values of the adults and participate in what they do. Where else in the world can you find such a thing?

As a rule, a child comes home, demands food, and shuts himself up in his room with a guitar or a computer, and then leaves with his friends and comes back in the morning. Basically, he leaves home and visits occasionally. This is considered normal. But in our families at Bnei Baruch, this is not the norm.

Therefore, we have something to show the world. This is actual dissemination. If we show everyone our interconnection and mutual support in all the groups, if we show the people of Israel that all of Israel are friends, that there are thousands of people in the country who want to be together and who feel that precisely by being together they reveal the upper world, this will be true dissemination. And it will be educational dissemination because we actually change the world, turning people to face each other.

That is why this summer we are planning to organize an international children’s camp, as well as other activities in order to show the world the results of our way of upbringing. We don’t even have to say anything: Let them just find out about it and see it. Even now many people and external organizations are impressed by what is happening with our children.

So let’s view the science of Kabbalah as an educational method that raises everyone—kids and adults alike—by means of the environment, helping each of us to become Human, similar to the Creator, without any reservations.
[37263]
From the 3rd lesson at the Dead Sea Convention on 2/25/11

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Question: It is very easy for us to unite during the convention because it seems to be very natural here to cancel ourselves, to “lose our heads,” to try to connect with others, and include ourselves in them. But it is very difficult to do this in your own group, once you return from the convention. Many problems arise and it becomes very difficult to feel the inner essence of the group; everything suddenly disappears. How do you overcome this?

Answer: Let us do an exercise: Let us come to a group, sit in a circle, look at one another, and think: “What is the Creator doing with us?” We want to unite, we work in the group, we have opened up a center of Kabbalah, we have gathered together, prepared a place for meeting, and nobody wants to go there….

Look what He does! We are not to blame for this; we do not have freedom of will. Look how He awakens us! What does He do this for? Why does He need it? What does He gain from this?

The only reason you do not advance is because you forget about one more component that exists among you: the Upper Force, the Creator, who arranges and prepares everything. Add Him! Become partners with Him! And then you will understand what you need to do, how to advance being connected with one another and with Him. Add Him to your group. I am serious about this: He exists among you. Start having this kind of gatherings of friends, these discussions of what happens between you, and then everything will clear up.
[37006]
From Lesson 1, Metzoke Dragot Congress 2/24/2011

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Question: Why is it much easier to rise above the repulsion from each other at the big Conventions?

Answer: 1. At the Convention a person is not in his group. He dissolves in an ocean of people with whom he did not have close contact and therefore did not reveal his evil toward them.

2. At the Conventions we do not work on revealing the evil in ourselves, but rather we awaken goodness. However, this goodness comes in spite of the evil that has already been revealed and in order for us to acquire forces for the future.

Therefore, people who do not work on themselves in the group do not feel a drive to come to the Convention. They do not see this as an opportunity to advance. “What will I do there? Jump? Sing? I can just watch it on TV or the Internet at a time that’s comfortable for me!”

In reality there is a big difference between virtual and physical participation at the Convention because in the latter case a person exerts energy, money, and great efforts to take part in it. In addition, prior to entering the sensation of the upper world, we cannot revoke the importance of material contact. Therefore, the Convention is intended for people who desire to come there with the realization of evil they have accumulated from before, as well as those who desire to receive the forces there to overcome the realization of evil in the future.

The Torah talks a lot about how in ancient times people would meet by a well to communicate and establish connections. That is how we should feel at the Convention: like people who have gathered by a life-giving well in a desert, and from that well we can receive the vital forces of Bina (water is the quality of bestowal, the quality of Bina).
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/7/11, The Zohar

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Question: To reveal the upper force, we need to come out from within ourselves, from within our egoism. But essentially, we do it for our own sake, in order to receive eternal pleasure. Isn’t this the most egoistic thing that can ever exist?

Answer: That is true! Naturally, all of our actions are purely egoistic. And no matter how much I lie to myself about wanting to connect with others, attain love for my neighbor, all of it is for my personal pleasure.

But something very special happens in the middle, something we do not even realize. When we agitate one another: “Let us unite! Let us sing and dance! Study together!” we evoke the upper force. It influences us and changes us even without our intention. This is called “Segula,” the “miraculous quality” of the upper Light.

And then I suddenly feel: “Really? I truly want to change? Why all of a sudden? What am I, crazy? To bestow? To love for real? Think of others? Then what will happen with me?”

I suddenly begin to feel that thinking of my neighbor has become more important to me. I do not yet exist in this quality, but I begin to want for this to happen. Before I rejected even the thought of this, but then gradually I come to a state when I really want to acquire the quality of bestowal and love for my neighbor.

Why all of a sudden? It’s because the Light influences me. This is called a miracle, which we refer to as: “The Light that comes reforms.” The same Light that created us to only think about ourselves changes us. And this is a miracle referred to as “the miracle of exit out of Egypt.”

When this happens, we feel something change, switch inside us. This changes all my foundations, my attitude towards the world, my view of the world and humanity, and my thoughts of everyone. I suddenly become my absolute opposite.

This is an act of creation, the Creator’s action. We see the actions of the Creator by feeling this inner revolution. And this is why this entire process that we experience is referred to as the Creator’s work. After all, we only evoke this action, and the Creator realizes it.

So do not be afraid, be honest: We really do not want anything but receiving pleasure and only thinking about ourselves, and we are all still egoists on the inside, regardless of the pretty words we use. But the Light comes and changes us due to all our actions in the studies, dissemination, and unity.

Let the Light work!
[36809]
From Lesson 1, Metzoke Dragot Congress 2/24/2011

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Below are pictures from the Metzoke Dragot Convention, February 23-25, 2011. The convention took place in a beautiful resort village near the Dead Sea with over 1,000 people in attendance.

[Show slideshow]

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Question: What is the connection between the root of a person’s soul and his ability or inability to connect with others souls, the degree of his desire for unity?

Answer: Every person in the world has a root of the soul: a spiritual spark, a point in the heart. This point can develop to such an extent that the person will feel attracted to something higher, beyond this world. Then he comes to the science of Kabbalah and enters the group.

There are also people whose point in the heart has not developed yet and each of them lives his private, material life. But even if this point “burns” strongly in a person and he passionately wishes to attain spirituality—the Creator, the goal of his life, and its meaning—this is just a point and no more.

What should he do next? He has to understand that a person’s soul is formed out of the spiritual sparks that he attaches to his point of the soul from each person of the seven billion people. The soul of every person is the aggregate unity of all of these points together. Therefore, if I now unite with everyone who is here at this convention, if I attach these 600 spiritual sparks to myself, then I attain the might of unity of all 600 points together.

How is that possible? How can I unite with their desires to attain spirituality? I can only do it with the help of “love your neighbor as yourself” in order to become “as one man with one heart,” as it is written in the article, “Matan Torah.”

If I connect with them in this way, then I acquire a field of unification—a desire consisting of many sparks. It’s as if we become “as one man” and inside of that desire I can reveal spirituality.

This desire is called the vessel or Kli of my soul because I have attached all of these points to myself. If someone else, one of these points which I attached to myself, also attaches everyone else to it, this will be called his soul. Meaning, his point is the initial one and he attaches other points to it. This is his soul.

Every person attaches all the points outside of him to himself, and that is how his soul forms. But if he hasn’t attached them to him, then he has no soul. He only has a point, the root of his soul.

According to the force of unification of these points inside me, their quantity and the force of the unity among them, inside of them, I reveal Light, life, and existence. As they connect with each other, they begin to unite and to be revealed in the form of a single system, similar to a living body through which blood and lymphatic liquid circulate, nervous impulses are passed, and many different actions take place. I begin to feel life there.

I attach the points to myself gradually. By connecting to them, I begin to feel how a tiny device forms inside of me: an embryo. Then it grows, developing over the course of nine months. I feel how I attach more and more points to it, and that is how it constantly grows.

Various inner actions already take place inside of it. Some kind of life emerges. I begin to recognize various processes in it, until finally, it is born. That means it begins to live its own life. Then it breaks away from the upper force and lives by itself. This is the soul. That is how each of us builds his soul.

From the 1st lesson at the Dead Sea Convention, 2/24/11

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Metzoke Dragot Congress, Lesson 2
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Metzoke Dragot Congress, Lesson 3
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Metzoke Dragot Congress, Lesson 1
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The upcoming Convention at the Dead Sea is intended to give the world the method of correction, meaning the necessity to prefer internality over externality. Baal HaSulam writes that this is the lever and our principle in disseminating the science of Kabbalah

If we first and foremost disseminate the importance of the internality over the externality among us, then this will overflow to the whole world, and the whole world will also start listening and preferring internality over externality. Then we will be able to elevate the things that bring us closer to the Creator even more, unite them, and reach the correction of the world.

I think that we are close to this and are advancing well. So let’s connect the highest point, which is Bnei Baruch, with the lowest point on earth–the Dead Sea!
[36249]
From the lecture in “Kabbalah L’Am” Hall on 2/22/11

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