Question: I feel that we managed to create a new Kli (vessel) at the convention. But soon I will return to my usual egoistic world and will once again be in contact with people who are not on the spiritual path…

Answer: A person cannot advance without creating his own circle. Everyone needs a group – whether virtual or physical – but it has to be an environment that has a stronger influence on him than the external, egoistic society.

He should form an environment that will determine his thoughts, desires, and values. Otherwise he will be lost because he will follow the general egoistic environment. This is our only choice, and if we do not make it, we will be unable to advance.

So now I am coming back home after the convention. Where are my thoughts now? What’s troubling me? I’m afraid of the moment I run away from a connection with the spiritual environment and delve into the material one.

Will I prevent this “click,” after which all my thoughts and desires will be on the other side, in the common swamp? How can I not miss the quick moment of transition?

This is what I should worry about. This has been our mistake that cost us so many years and efforts. The rest is not a problem; the only problem is that I come home and calm down: “Great, the convention is over, now I can get back to normal life.” And then that’s it: Everything you had became Klipot (impure shells).

The only action that depends on me is to attach myself to a spiritual environment, stick to the group so that it is always close and influences me stronger than the material environment. Just like a child, when scared, stays close to his parent hoping that this will save him from all the trouble. Holding on to his parent, he’s sure that now everything will be okay. This is how we should cling to a spiritual environment.

When you leave, don’t avert your eyes from the group, listen to it as if you’ve still got the headphones on, and remind yourself of spirituality with our songs. It doesn’t matter where we are and what we do: There always has to be something dear in the background, something you received from the group. A faint sound of the lesson coming from a minimized window still gets into the unconscious.

And please be sure to visit my blog. I say the most important things there. Even the photos that are posted there I choose with great care. Make sure to read it daily because the following day the materials lose their strength. We’re all uniting around the blog and the morning lesson.

We’re not asked to produce more than the effort. This is what choosing a better environment is. And the Light does its job. Everyone should take care to connect to a strong spiritual environment in order to keep the spirit that you’re taking with you when leaving the convention.
[26553]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/10, Shamati #26

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At the Convention we acquired a new sensation, and we now have to develop it. We feel that there is a wall before us and we have to break it with the help of the Upper Light, the Creator. He is precisely what we lack. Let Him say, “Let us go to the Pharaoh.”

To do this it is necessary to understand, and most importantly to agree that we are breaking the wall in order to give pleasure to Him instead of ourselves. We forget about the two most important aspects of the path:

1. The only way to advance forward is by means of His force.
2. We are advancing towards bestowal to the Creator.

All of this eludes me. For now I am thinking about myself instead of bestowal to the Creator. I try to break through the Machsom with my own forces rather than His. This way, the goal and the means are still locked inside my egoism.

Nevertheless, this is a good state because we start to understand the fundamental principles of spiritual advancement. A boundary emerged before us and we have to do something about it. It does not exist by itself, but constitutes a psychological barrier inside us. If we aim ourselves correctly, it will disappear.

The thought about the Creator’s benefit is opposite to my nature, and the friends also don’t have it. It lies precisely inside our unity. That is why we have to work on three aspects:

1. I am united with the group.
2. Together with the friends I have to define the right aspiration, which will enable us to break through the Machsom: By uniting, we elicit the force of the Creator.
3. All of this is in order to give Him pleasure or in other words, to attain unity with Him.

The common, unceasing care and worry must awaken everyone. This is the mutual guarantee; the group is not the faces of the friends, but the spiritual community which permeates every person with thoughts about the goal. We suddenly start to think about this and to desire it. When every person tries to build his desire into a line, then it expands across the whole world in circles, unbounded by any boundaries or distances.

Mutual guarantee means that I am responsible for the entire system in which the Creator has placed me. If I don’t hold on to the right thought, then at that moment everyone is thrown out of the right thought. By disconnecting, I stop providing for the common organism. Can the liver or kidneys go on vacation?

That is why I ask the world group to always think about the goal of creation, about bestowal to the Creator. Then I won’t lose the connection no matter where I am.
[27265]
From the lesson on 11/20/10

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Question: I am in a descent ever since the Convention has ended. I’m afraid that I have lost the desire for bestowal. I work in the group, but do not feel that this helps, and maybe it even interferes. I am thinking about leaving just in order to reveal the desire again. Is this correct?

Answer: What desire will you reveal if you leave? The desire to go to a bar or a football game? We receive the need for spirituality only from the environment. By leaving it you will go in the exactly opposite direction.

It is written about the revelation of egoism: The sinners will fall where the righteous walk. This is your dilemma: to become righteous or a sinner.

The concealment that came after the Convention revealed a new, powerful, egoistic desire in you, intended for you to work on and correct. However, you want to run away from this work instead of making a new start precisely from the place where you have to.

We always advance from the “opposite” – from the revelation of a new, corrupted part of the desire for pleasure. In this place you must only discern your connection with the goal. In reality this corrupted part does not separate me from the goal at all, but on the contrary, it offers me the opportunity to move forward by pulling it towards correction.

However, in the process I experience bad sensations, darkness, and helplessness. Heaviness and indifference come down on me and all the passionate speeches lose flavor. So what should I do? How can I keep from running away?

That is when habit, obligation, and an established order come to the rescue. My efforts accumulate, penny by penny, until reaching a great sum. No matter what happens, you cannot leave the path.
[27165]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, The Zohar

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I am receiving many letters where people share their impressions of the last Convention:

“The Convention was incredible, something totally new! For the first time I felt that we are truly one. In comparison to the previous conventions when I felt that I was involved in something, this time I felt we all became this something. Yet, not everything is fully clarified and discerned: What is right and how to make it right?

I didn’t feel disappointed; rather, I felt that our work wasn’t complete and the place where we got stuck was not discerned. I got to experience and realize (after your explanations) that the goal of our unity was incorrect, for the ‘Pharaoh’s sake,’ for our egoism.

It is absolutely unclear how to acquire the clue and the aiming point in order to make a correct request, although some hint seems to have been evidently provided, and it just has to be excavated from under the heap of all that we have received. And it is quite possible that we received only one clue but from different angles and for the time being we are unable to connect the points to see the whole and clearly comprehend it.”

“I would like to describe just a few things I experienced consciously. The greatest one was right after the program on the second day of the Convention: We were sitting in the hotel room way after midnight and didn’t want to leave; there was almost a physical sensation of some field between us, like the dough that glues us together and fills all the space with love. Once it has manifested, it either increases or practically disappears, yet we clearly feel that it exists and there is a chance to uncover it. This also brought up many questions about the essence of oneness and how we may merge with this field if we are totally unable to do so.”
[26807]

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Question: I feel that we can increase the speed and raise our unity to its true height without waiting for the next Convention. How can we do that?

Answer: We are not waiting for the next Convention. We must overcome all the gaps and distances right now. Every person must imagine the place inside of him where our desires unite, and inside them we will reveal the spiritual world, the Creator!

Our common effort to unite together through our desires, our points in the heart, and the demand for the Creator to be revealed between us and to unite us, will make it happen. We don’t have to wait for a Convention to make it happen!
[27193]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/10, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose”

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Question: In the book A Vision of Goodness, it is written: “And know that man has to study the four levels of PARDES: Pshat, Remez, Drush, Sod, and reincarnate until he fulfills them.” Do we really need to go through so many reincarnations until we learn the entire PARDES (the simple explanation, the allegory, the hint, and the secret), in order to reach the end of correction?

Answer: We need to reach “Pshat,” the simple explanation of the Torah. So far we have been studying “Sod,” the hidden, secret meaning. “Sod” means that I am studying, but I understand nothing; it is a secret to me.

When the secret becomes slightly clearer, it turns into “Remez” (a hint), then into “Drush” (the allegorical explanation, an allegory), and then into “Pshat” (a simple explanation). There are four worlds: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut. Right now I am studying the entrance into the World of Assiya; I still do not understand anything, and this means that I am studying the secret, “Sod.”

Once I transition from the World of Assiya into a higher world, the World of Yetzira, I will study “Drush.” In the World of Beria I will study “Remez,” and in the World of Atzilut “Pshat.”

“Pshat” is the greatest attainment, when there is no concealment at all, and everything is clear, open, simple, and obvious. All the Lights fill all the Kelim (vessels), I know and understand everything!

Every person needs to attain this in his or her soul, but on his own level, until his complete correction.
[26779]
From Lesson 3, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/9/10

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Question: How do we resume the aspiration for spirituality after the Convention?

Answer: At the Convention you felt an obstacle that is getting in your way – Pharaoh. This was the first time you encountered it and you understood what the ten plagues are: We want to achieve the connection with others, but we are being pushed back.

Now we need to understand that in response to the blow that we received, we must develop our own desire equal to the force of rejection. This only comes through unity with the friends while studying, where our study becomes an appeal for the unity of desires.

We already have a deficiency and impression from the collision with egoism (Pharaoh), the egoism that separates me from spirituality. It’s as if I literally hit a wall that’s between myself and the Upper World, and this wall is that potential negative force that has pushed me back.

I received a blow, but I have to discern that I am egoism, and if I am able to rise above this blow through faith above reason and develop an opposite force, then I will advance into this structure, into the wall. Then the next blow will come, and so on, and this is how I will pass the Machsom (the barrier that separates us from spirituality), which has five levels of depth (Aviut) or ten Sefirot, just like any phenomenon in spirituality.

We have already begun this attack, and every time it will become clearer to us what we need to attain and what we need to fight. Now I need to distinguish the disappointment, pain, the blow, and the rejection in me, and instead of relating it to me, relate it to the Pharaoh within me.

When I am united with the group, the blow does not hit me, I am above the rejection and disappointment. This helps me distinguish the “I” who strives towards the Creator and the Pharaoh (the “I” in me).

But what should I do with the disappointment and helplessness? Ask the Creator for help! I finally need Him now, but not before. Before we used to think that we can attain unity with the group, the mutual guarantee, and the revelation on our own.

We never accepted the Creator as the third main force which does the entire work. That is what it is called: the Creator’s work (Avodat Hashem). We only evoke it.
[26782]
From Kabbalah for Beginners, “Yearning” 11/15/10

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Question: How does the science of Kabbalah say I should relate to the things that threaten my life, such as war, a terrorist attack, falling rockets, or just a regular criminal attack?

Answer: While we are still uncorrected, we have to live in this corresponding, uncorrected world of ours while correcting ourselves and thereby correcting the world. In the meantime every person should behave according to what is accepted in society and the world.

At the same time, each of us must correct himself and thereby reveal the Upper Force, the quality of bestowal and love inside him and in the world. To the degree he makes this revelation, our enemies will gradually become our friends and all the bad things will disappear.

However, for now we have to behave in accordance with our uncorrected qualities. All my haters and enemies are the evil that’s inside me, which becomes revealed on the outside in this manner. I project them to the outside and that is why they exist.

However, if instead of them I see the Creator standing behind them, then they suddenly become inseparable parts of me. Therefore, we shouldn’t be afraid. What we have to do is perform corrections.

I am certain that nothing bad can happen to a person if he is always aimed at “there is none else besides Him.”
[27109]
From Lesson 7, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10

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Shamati #1: It is written, “there is none else besides Him.” This means that there is no other force in the world that has the ability to do anything against Him.

There is a single Upper Force that governs the whole universe. And what man sees, that there are things in the world that deny the Higher Household…in other words, it seems to us that there are many opposing forces operating in the world that overpower one another, and that it is possible to receive help from one force in order to oppose another, using this “multiple power.” …the reason is that this is His will.

This one force, which has total power, wants us to become so confused by the multitude of forces, desires, kinds, and qualities, so that from within this mess we would start to gather the only existing force ourselves. It seems to us that this life is multi-faceted and complex, but we have to bring it to one desire, one goal, and one operating force.

It’s similar to how we teach children by giving them exercises where they have to assemble and fix something that’s broken, not ready, or incomplete. They have to correct it and complete it on their own. That is how we have to act at every moment of our lives.

It seems to us that it is very difficult to work hard in life and to make efforts, but if we did just one thing behind all of these material actions — if we completed the Upper Force in order to see that He is the only one who acts, then we would not need to do anything else!

We work in the material world to produce many things, but in reality we are simply running away from solving the only, tiny problem: to discern that behind all of these problems, details, thoughts, and discernments, there is one force standing opposite me. There is me and Him, and between us He has built all of these decorations that confuse me so that through them I would find my way to Him and feel that they come to me form Him! This is called clarification.

If at every moment of my life, no matter what I do, whether I am talking to someone, someone is attacking me, or on the contrary, someone approaches me in a good way, or something happens to my health, money, or status at work or in my family, if behind every occurrence I try to reveal the Creator, then I will begin to unite everything into one net as if making an embroidery. I will begin seeing and revealing this system of connections: His program and attitude to me through all of these people and all the possible life situations.

I will suddenly understand what happened in the past and will start to see what He will do to me in the future. He slightly lets me see what needs to be done with various problems, teaching me like a small child. I have to accept this life only as a quest for Him — to look for Him and find Him! After all the efforts I make, I should always see that there is none else besides Him and everything comes only from Him!

This has to happen to such a degree that when I am in the most difficult and unpleasant situation, when I reach total despair and exhaustion, and I am completely unable to connect it to the Creator, I nevertheless begin to aim it toward the Creator and to look for the reason why this has come to me in this form and where it came from. Then I reveal how wonderful it is….

I begin to put all of the components of the general picture in order and suddenly discover that He has set everything up only for my own good to help me reach newer revelations! Eventually I reveal that everything around me is one interconnected net of His attitude toward me through the entire universe and through all the Upper Worlds. I am surrounded by a force field of His love, and I am at its center. This is called the revelation of the Creator to the creatures.
[27117]
From Lesson 7, World Kabbalah Convention 2010, 11/11/10

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Question: During the Convention we really wanted to attain the goal, and then we discovered that our ego would not let us do it. Why won’t the Creator answer our prayers and let us rise above this mountain of egoism? Why are we unable to do this?

Answer: The Creator is the general force of bestowal. He created our force of reception. These two forces stand one opposite the other like stringers of a ladder with rungs in between.

As you correspond to a higher step, you ascend to it, advancing to a new degree one step at a time. Everything is in your hands. You have been given a key to nature in order to change your own nature and make it similar to that of the Upper One.

You ascend as soon as you become similar to it, but when you are different from it, then you remain in the same place. It does not depend on the Creator, His desire is constant; He is Good and does Good. The Creator does not change, this force is absolute and invariable.

But in order to let you ascend, the Creator divided the entire path into steps or states. Every time that you are like the Upper degree, you ascend to it, and as you become even more like it, you continue to ascend higher. Between each step, you have to prepare yourself for the following step, and this way you continue ascending each time.

You have no one to pray to, no one to ask. This is why you can’t object: “Why won’t the Creator help me? Where is He? Where did He go? What is going on? What else does He want me to do?” Essentially, when you pray and ask, you are judging yourself in relation to the Upper Light that shines for everyone in an equal, constant, and unchanging manner. Everyone can take as much as he wants from it.

It is written about the Creator: “I do not change my HaVaYaH,” “There is none else beside Him,” “The Good Who does Good.” He does not change. When you correlate your properties to His, as if He were thinking about or reacting to your cries, then you are making all of it up. Throughout history people have been attributing human characteristics to forces of nature: the wind, the rain, the moon, as well as the Creator. But this does not exist!

We are working against nature. Kabbalists explain to us that Nature where we exist has its own laws. In Hebrew, the numerical value (Gematria) of “nature” and “Creator” is the same. We can use these laws and continue to ascend its degrees time after time until we reach the universal Nature referred to as the level of Bina, the Creator (Elokim).

This is why it is clear to me that if I have not yet received it, then the problem is in me. I have no one to fear and no one to ask.

It is correct to say that the Creator rules over us. Doesn’t nature rule over us? Yes it does. Tsunamis, hurricanes, and other natural disasters occur, and it is surely nature’s rule over us!

In nature, there are two opposite forces which constantly collide and battle: the force of bestowal and that of reception. It all happens according to the program that leads us towards the purpose of creation. In the beginning these forces are completely opposite, but they gradually become closer until they unite. This is the process of development in nature.

This is why you have no one to work with but the group. You can change yourself through the group and make your properties similar to those of nature. The group is an adapter between your desire, which you do not control, and the Creator, whom you cannot control either. The group, the society, the environment, is your only power; it is the only thing you can change.

Hence, if instead of advancing unconsciously according to nature’s program that leads the entire creation towards unity with the Creator, I want to change something; if I want to advance towards Him on my own, and not by nature’s cruel forces, then I only have one choice: to work with my environment.
[26815]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/10, The Zohar

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