“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also sit together.” These are the friends as they sit together, and are not separated from each other. At first, they seem like people at war, wishing to kill one another. Then they return to being in brotherly love.

The Creator says about them, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to also sit together” The word, “also,” comes to include the Shechina with them. Moreover, the Creator listens to their words and He has contentment and delights with them (Zohar for All, Aharei Mot [After the Death], “Behold, How Good and How Pleasant,” Item 65.) 

These are the great words from The Book of Zohar. This is what happens when people go through enormous obstacles and discover how much they hate and dislike each other, to what extent they are lying to each other, and how much they deceive themselves. They like to say beautiful words and then realize that all this is meaningless because after a second, as soon as they say something, they already completely disagree with it, and so on.

When they come close to the right correction and it is revealed to them how much they were at war with each other and how they deceived each other, then from this they return to brotherly love. This is when they say, “How good it is for brothers to sit together.” After all, they feel the manifestation of the Creator between them. Precisely between them. This is the occurrence of the Shechina, the manifestation of the Creator.

They feel how much they bring contentment to the Creator and how He rejoices together with them. By merging with each other and with the Creator, they become one single whole when both the desire and the light that fills them are one.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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Comment: We received a letter from women who gathered in Latvia to support our congress. They write that they also have a strong congress in Latvia, Moscow, and virtually as well, absolutely identical to the male one.

In parallel with our meetings, they have regular gatherings of friends, which are held by women’s groups from different countries. They use them to clarify the prayer and the role of women. They realize that women cannot live and unite for their own sake, but they live and unite for the sake of men, the future generation, and the world.

My Response: I absolutely agree with them. Indeed, we men need to learn this from women. They initially have a more “outside of themselves” nature. And we will try to be similar and correct ourselves.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 2, 7/24/22

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Until we come to mutual guarantee on the basis of “love thy neighbor as thyself,” we will not receive the Torah. And the Torah is the light that is clothed in the desire created by the Creator. In principle, the global law “love your neighbor as yourself” is the main law of the universe that will fulfill that everyone reveals the whole universe in himself.

Let’s try not to forget about it and gradually associate with it.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 2, 7/24/22

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Question: What is the elevating force of a Kabbalistic melody (Nigun)? When we sing together, how much does it lift us up?

Answer: It’s not about the melody, but about how tense your hearts are. So the melody itself doesn’t matter. It is only important that we want to express in it how much we strain our hearts and put them together.

The melody is good because it is easily understandable. This is a common language for everyone. It is not expressed in words. And the notes are the same for everyone.
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From lesson 2 “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, 7/24/22

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Question: How does the gratitude we feel toward the Creator as a group not neutralize our intense prayer? How does the feeling that we receive everything from the Creator lead us further to acceleration, active actions, and common prayer?

Answer: You can’t feel it yet because it is still in the desire to receive, not to bestow.

But soon you will begin to feel how much you have gathered your desires to bestow, and the light of the Creator’s bestowal will begin to manifest in them. As soon as you reach the degree of equivalence of the Creator’s minimal attitude toward you, meaning that you will treat Him the same way, you will immediately begin to feel the interaction between you and the Creator.
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From lesson 2 “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, 7/24/22

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Question: In what prayer should those who are physically gathered in the Arava and the entire world Kli be? Is it to dissolve not in this beauty surrounding us, but in another beauty—in a friend.

Answer: The most important thing is to annul yourself after all. Annul and throw yourself into the arms of your friends so to speak. And everyone should do so. It may sound incorrect, but when a person annuls himself, he wants to feel not himself, but only others.

He wants to apply his strength to them. That’s what they want, and that’s what I’m going to do, as if I don’t have my “I,” there’s nothing, just strength, like a machine. I am ready to work for others. They want to connect, I will connect them. What they want, I will do, and I myself have no desires of my own, no goals of my own.

This is what we should, in principle, make of ourselves. We will reach our goal very quickly when we are all united and discover the Creator in connection with each other.

It’s in front of us, and it’s close.
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From lesson 1 “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, 7/22/22

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Question: What did Rabash introduce into his texts that they again and again bring me an inner trembling that cannot be endured?!

Answer: You can communicate with a person at different levels of desires but with the Creator only if you give yourself completely to Him. From above, we are never given a half but only a full Kli (full desire). And therefore, although we divide it into NaRaNHaY—zero, one, two, three, four levels of desire, this already refers to the state when a person completely cuts himself off from personal reception and works for bestowal.

This is where we need to see how we are approaching this and whether we have any part in it or not, but so that it will not seem impossible or very far away to us.

In general, we are on the threshold of this state. A little effort and we will be in it. And the fact that we feel how high and far it is, this is very good for us to make the jump.

Question: How can we make the attack? By aiming t he hearts of one regarding the other?

Answer: Drawing these forces in relation to each other is possible only when everyone gives an example of how devoted he is to others.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe – Lithuania 2022, Lesson 2, 7/24/22

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Question: How can one form the request to cancel the egoistic shell and exit to the real internal connection of the hearts? What is this request? How to express it?

Answer: This is a question that has no answer. You yourself, by your own efforts should get close to feeling how you need to ask in order to deserve an answer. In the meantime, you have not earned an answer because your demand is not yet sufficient either in strength or in content.

Look how it is written in the fifth excerpt, Maor VaShemesh: “The most important is true connection and love and affection among the friends. This causes all the salvations and sweetening of judgments. When you gather together in love and friendship, by this, all the judgments are removed, sweetened with mercy, and complete mercy and disclosed Hassadim [mercy/grace] are revealed in the world by connecting.”

This is what you need to think about. The appeal to the Creator must come from connection, from the correct relationship between us. It is incredibly hard, but this is how it should be arranged.

And what are you asking for? You have to reach a state where you have done the maximum that you can to get closer to your friends and found that there is still a gap between you. Feeling this gap, you shout to the Creator to help you jump over it. Then it will work.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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Question: You said that one needs to lose oneself in the friends. How can this be done?

Answer: Losing yourself among friends is, of course, not easy, but this is what we must do. It is when your egoism disappears, and you feel only your friends but not yourself.

Rabash writes about this in his Letter 8: “I simply exit the corporeal vessels and it seems to me that there is no reality in the world except my friends and I. After that, even the ‘I’ is cancelled and is immersed, mingled in my friends, until I stand and declare that there is no reality in the world—only the friends.” He has such a letter, and it is worth reading it.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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Question: We have always felt dependent on the men’s group and it is with great trepidation that we are now revealing that the men’s group also depends on us in some way. We want to find the place where we need to apply our effort, something that depends solely on us.

How can we come to such a prayer? How can we come to the point that depends only on women? We would like to give a helping hand to men who need us now, and we feel this.

Answer: There is no need to give any helping hand to men. You should just pray for them. Women, as I said, know how to do it. Pray for them, and you will succeed.
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From the “Arava” Convention in Europe—Lithuania 2022, Lesson 1, 7/22/22

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