Question: Is the whole process of the creature’s development and the measure of its bestowal predetermined?

Answer: Nobody is restricting you in any way! You have free choice and every opportunity. Even the prophets could not predict the way we will advance. In all the prophecies of the days of the Messiah and the war of Gog and Magog, the revelation was only in the left line, the line of natural development and not in the three lines.

Nobody knows ahead of time the extent to which we will be able to sweeten this path. That is, we cannot predict what may happen at the Mega Congress. It is entirely possible that we will cross the Machsom and continue our spiritual ascent!

Or we can rise over it for some time and fall again, needing to cross it several times so as to ultimately stay in the spiritual world. Everything depends on how we organize and realize our connection.

The other essential factor is how we will accept this revelation. If we have prepared ourselves to accept it only for the sake of bestowal, and do not yield to the pleasure it offers, then together through mutual guarantee, we will be able to use all the revelations, pleasures, and states that will come and continue our path upward in spirituality.

But everything is in our hands. Everything is ready!

From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/10, Article “Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

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Pictures from the Unity Evening for Shavuot that took place May 17, 2010, Tel Aviv, Israel.

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A question I received: The World Zohar Convention has just ended. At the convention we saw over a thousand people of different races and nationalities many of which carry historical stereotypes. Unexpectedly, in a mere 20-30 hours all these differences disappeared giving rise to connection and love. What do we lack to be in this state continuously?

My Answer: At the convention people felt unity, inspiration, and importance of the goal. However, 20 hours have passed since the gathering, and now we can hardly remember how it was there. Everything vanishes from our senses and memory. Why can’t we to continue in this way and always be in this state?

This state just like everything else in our life cannot last long. One’s inspiration and enthusiasm reach a peak and then a person calms down. It’s impossible to stay inspired forever. This follows from the law of the inverse relationship between the Light and desire: At one moment the Light has to increase, at another the desire. They increase alternately, and through this we advance as if walking on two legs along the middle line that connects two other lines, left and right.

The two lines connect only with the purpose of pressing forward, and then to start moving again. We first move to the right where we obtain the importance of the goal, connection, and desire to continue and go. Then from the left, there comes “heaviness the heart,” so that we have something to work on and return again to the middle line. This is how we advance.

This is why this state cannot last long: It would go against nature. I would even say that no state is more undesirable than being in constant euphoria. A person has to feel that he advances, works, and overcomes some internal resistance, instead of being constantly “up in the clouds.”

Our work is to acutely feel that we give and receive something, and give again, and receive again. We have to feel resistance, actions, and achievements. This is why there is so much pleasure in hard work and difficult preparation that culminate in such a great convention where we see the results of our work and enjoy what we attained for two or three days. However, after this, we again have to return to the state of burden, overcoming, search, clarifications, and corrections so as to eventually arrive at another beautiful outcome.

It is because the Creator and creature stand opposite each other as two opposite properties: the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. Equality between them is achieved only by the means of such mutual actions. Advancement is impossible otherwise. We can’t stay in the small state (Katnut) or Hafetz Hesed: We have to move forward!

Post Zohar Convention Lesson 5/11/10

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As a person rises from one level to the next and goes through various states, he mustn’t forget that there is just one force in reality. It’s not him or the environment, but only the Upper Force, the all-inclusive Nature, the Creator, who organizes all these states for him, and he exists in connection with Him.

It’s true that I have to lower myself before the environment and that I have to study the Kabbalah books that were written by wise people, Kabbalists, and that I must continuously build myself anew. But through all of these means, this wrapper, this entire theater, I am connected with the only Director who arranges everything by the rule, “Thou Hast Hemmed Me In Behind and Before.”

Then I don’t just go through levels and states or build a relationship with the group, but I am always connected to Him through all the means He has placed between us. They are like adapters that help me to reveal Him. Gradually, as I study them, I see that all these obstacles and degrees of concealment between me and Him are intended to help me change so I will become more and more similar to Him, to the Director who organizes everything for me.

Then I begin to perceive the surroundings, the atmosphere, the friends, studies, and teacher, as His representatives. I stop attributing any significance or existence to them in and of themselves, and they gradually disappear in my eyes. I no longer see them as having their own forces, power, and influence.

I relate them to the Creator more and more, and to this degree I justify them and the Creator, who acts this way with me. That is how I acquire a connection with Him. Then I love everyone, since they helped me attain adhesion with Him. And the whole world is then called “the holy Shechina” – one desire, inside of which the Light fills everything. And this desire is mine.

From the 8th lesson at the World Zohar Convention 5/9/10

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If there is any evil happening in the world, it means that we are still unable to bring correction to the world. If people are still waging wars, destruction, and terrorism, scorn one another, lie to another, and try to profiteer of each other by any means, it means that we are failing to correct the world.

If the Light shone more, none of this could happen. People would be unable to behave this way and nature on the still, vegetative, and animate levels would not give us these unpleasant “surprises.”

We exist inside the all-inclusive nature, but our balance with it depends on us, on man’s level. That is why we have to build an enormous spiritual vessel (Kli) among those studying Kabbalah. We have to unite with a strong connection so people all over the world will feel this power and be compelled to unite with each other.

That is how it happens. After all, where do all the different thoughts and desires come to us from? We don’t know about it, but they emerge from within and pass from one to another along the net of connection among us.

We are living at a special time. Baal HaSulam writes that we have to be very grateful to the Creator for living in a generation that has received the opportunity to disseminate the science of Kabbalah, which has reached us from antiquity.

We are the first generation that is able to use this science and attain eternity, to rise above this entire life, to come out of the boundaries of all the earthly limitations and enter a new dimension, the spiritual world.
[14005]
From the 6th lesson at the World Zohar Convention 5/9/10

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I don’t lack problems in life. Sometimes it seems that I am so sick and tired of everything, I have no desire left for any of it. Thus, I have to set aside for a moment all that is animalistic and earthly and discern the most important thing: What are my current relationships with those around me? I hate them, I don’t care about them one bit, they might as well disappear for all I care… This negative, which I aim at the environment, is my evil inclination.

It is being expressed as a result of the breaking of our souls: We were once united, but now we are discovering the reverse – total disconnection. This discovery is extremely important; it is what I need. I mustn’t discard these negative moments, but collect them. They show me how much I hate others, and it’s wonderful that this is being revealed! Yes, I hate them and scorn them, they make me sick to my stomach, we are mindboggingly distant from each other – and that’s wonderful. Now I have an opportunity to begin the correction.

Thus, I start moving toward them. I make efforts, participate in the study and dissemination in order to feel out at least some sort of connection, to bend down anywhere I can. If I feel that today I am powerless even to look at my friends, then I have to take on some sort of mechanical work that benefits the goal, until I gradually return to the general flow.

Every person can be cast down into a state from which he cannot rise on his own. That is why he is simply obligated to receive support from his group and from our entire world community, like someone who has lost consciousness and needs outside help.

On their part, the groups have to identify these cases and immediately offer emergency, professional help to the "victims," like doctors that save the patient’s spiritual life. When doing this, we don’t "stomp out" the evil in a person, but offer support in order to awaken him and bring him to the middle line, which will build him up. Then all the evil will turn to goodness.

From Lesson 5, World Zohar Convention 5/8/10

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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 6
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 7
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 8
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 9
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A question I received: The World Zohar Convention is starting today. How can we prepare ourselves so as to receive as much as possible from this meeting?

My Answer: All participants will gather together, and the hall will be filled. We all will start thinking and feeling simultaneously.

At the moment, it’s still not happening. It usually takes about a day, and the change occurs the next day. There is certain inertia in the relationships between people and their ability to feel each other. It always takes time. It resembles a symphony orchestra tune-up: each player is fine-tuning his instrument before the concert and one can only hear an incoherent cacophony of sounds. In the same manner we have to fine-tune ourselves and start feeling something together.

The success of the convention depends on us getting inspired from the same things, increasing more and in coordination with each other. Usually, the state is completely different on the second day of the congress. I hope that by tomorrow evening, we will play in complete coordination with each other. Let’s work hard till the end of the convention, and I anticipate a huge success.

The situation is truly unique. It can be felt sharper every single day, especially here, in America which has to come to the spiritual development as soon as possible. If this happens here, it will certainly spread throughout the entire world, and the whole humanity will reach a state of the final correction which we must attain. It may happen within a couple of years or even months instead of years. It all depends on us.

Everything will unfold in the way it is described by the science of Kabbalah. We only determine the speed and the manner by which we will reach the final correction; whether or not we will go through these states in a good and pleasant way.

We have to feel that the connection between us reveals to us a new sensation, a new reality. We will start feeling a new force that acts upon and activates everything. We have to start feeling it in practice at least to some small, initial degree. Then we will have something to give to the entire world.

This is what I expect from this convention. There should be a group here, not just a thousand people – a group with one desire, one thought, one goal, and one inspiration. Unity is a force. If it transpires even for a smallest, initial measure, we will start feeling the spiritual dimension. We are very close to it.

However for it to be not a simply beautiful sensation, but the spiritual revelation we need to unite together into a single spiritual substance, in common bestowal where we will be able to reveal the single force – the Creator. It is very realistic and timely today. Let’s look forward to it!

From Lesson 1, World Zohar Convention, 5/7/10

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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 5
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 1
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 2
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 3
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World Zohar Convention, Lesson 4
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