Question: How is it that a person is able to annul oneself before the environment?

Answer: A person despairs of how much time has passed and so much effort has been applied, and still there’s no result. But if one nevertheless is in the group and continues to attend, in the end one’s desire changes.

I remember once I came to Rabash’s lesson during a terrible rainstorm. Nobody had a car except for me, so we waited for a long time, but nobody came. Then I began to call and ask why people didn’t come, and then offered a ride. And the reply was: “What can I do if there’s such a flood outside?”

And then another student showed up all soaking wet. When we asked him how he was able to walk in such a downpour, he replied: “What could I do if there’s a lesson?”

It turns out that one sits at home and says, “What could I do?” “How could I go out in this rain?” And another came completely drenched and also said, “What could I do, there’s a lesson, and I couldn’t stay home?”

Everything depends on a person’s attitude towards any given condition. Every moment you are being asked about your attitude. If you don’t forget that everything comes from above especially for you so that you work with it, then you have no choice, and you act accordingly.

Question: How can I, with every given possibility, persuade myself to take a step towards the group?

Answer: It is written: “Whatever the mind doesn’t do, time does.” And indeed it’s true. If there’s no quality, quantity will work. In any case, you realize that one day, due to the influence of the Light, nothing will help you. You won’t accomplish anything by addressing the Creator directly, since it doesn’t work like that.

Then you despair and decide that you’re required to connect yourself with the environment. You’ll want to connect your threads with everyone else’s, and everyone else wants to connect with you, like you’re a fish caught in a net. Only in this form will you have the opportunity to do something about yourself, and most importantly, let friends work on you.

You are bound to feel disillusioned to the point where you doubt your own abilities in order to agree to submit yourself to the environment, to become entangled in the net with one hope that friends will affect you. You believe that they have the power to do so. You have no connection with the Creator on your own, and He doesn’t want to influence and change you.

After all, you see that many years have passed, but nothing helps. There’s nothing else to do, and then you make your decision. This requires a lot of effort, time, perseverance, and persistence. There shouldn’t be a day where you miss a lesson.
[148969]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14 Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” Article 15

Writings of Rabash “Dargot HaSulam,” Article 875

The Book of Zohar “Introduction,” “Explanation of the Division of the Fourteen Commandments into Ten Utterances” 

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 57

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” “The Multiplicity of Partzufim, Sefirot, and Worlds”

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Question: I don’t know how I will hold on for the three hours of the lesson because I feel tired, heavy, and lack energy; my body feels as if it is full of lead. Is there some kind of quick solution to overcome the heaviness of heart?

Answer: It is known that the whole reason for heaviness in the work is that a person doesn’t feel the Creator. So it is simply necessary for me to be conscious all the time and to try and remember that the Creator portrays all the feelings of my reality: everything I see, hear and perceive through my five senses, including my perception of myself and the world. I get everything from Him.

It is the Creator who is making this feeling of heaviness for me, since everything that I feel comes from Him. If I don’t forget this, then I will be looking for how to deal with the state that I receive from the Creator. The main thing is not to forget that in each and every moment, through feeling myself and the surrounding world, I have contact with the Creator.

I have contact with the Creator now! And so I must constantly think, “How is He bestowing to me and how am I bestowing to Him? How do I obtain equivalence with Him, His revelation, and pass from this feeling of concealment that doesn’t let me clearly feel that we are connected together and adherent to each other?”

Even before my characteristics begin to reach equivalence of form with the Creator, by feeling this world (Olam), which symbolizes hiding (Alama), or concealment; meaning when I am feeling my body and the environment, I am constantly in connection with the Creator. We must try to be in such a sensation that passes through the skin, through the body, the emotion and intellect, the thoughts, and everything there is. All that I feel reaches me from the Creator, as well as the thoughts and desires that are changing within me.

This is because I never lose contact with the Creator. Then, I will be able to look for how it is possible to be connected even more strongly with Him and how to establish reciprocal connection, love, and mutual bestowal.
[149074]
From the Preparation to Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/7/14

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Question: How does a person succeed in understanding that he depends on the environment?

Answer: Blows “straighten” the desire to enjoy, give it shape, like kneading dough and sometimes beating it. A person cannot reach the same result by himself because the protective power of the ego will not let a person suffer.

He doesn’t want to bow, not even to diminish himself a little bit. He will twist himself in every possible way; the main thing is not to allow a change in his form, which is advantageous for the ego.

It is said that there is no happier moment in a person’s life than when he discovers the failure of his own power and that only a prayer remains for him. And that prayer must pass through the environment, through the society; you have no other way. The Creator is found within the environment, within the group, within the whole, the people. So when you turn to the Creator, you must turn by way of the collective Kli.

You must be included in the same Kli in which the Creator is found. There is no Light without a Kli, so if you want to turn to the Creator, you must turn to the same Kli He is found in.

I need electricity, so how can I get it? You don’t catch lightning from the sky; instead you connect to a battery or an outlet where electricity is found. You must connect to it wherever it is and get the electricity from it through an instrument.

You cannot turn to the Creator directly, egoistically, the way you wanted to and thought of doing before. Rather now you understand that the Creator is found within a society. Although you reached this awareness through blows, you can spare yourself from blows and save time through speaking and reading about it, ultimately shortening the time through this influence.

The result is still the same, but you have already begun to search for Him within the Kli where He is found. All souls are searching for how to connect to Malchut de Atzilut, for that is where the Creator is revealed.

Zeir Anpin is disconnected from us and we don’t know what it is. We get a copy of it and its influence through Malchut. Through our efforts, Malchut clings to Zeir Anpin and receives Light from it according to our deficiencies. We work by way of the Kelim. Even fulfillments are our Kelim.

In every circumstance in our lives we never measure the power itself but only its influence on something. This is because we are creatures.
[149011]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14, Writing of Rabash

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Question: What do you expect of the coming convention?

Answer: First we need to regard the convention seriously and to spend every minute and every hour of the convention in a collective inclination to connect in order to reveal our collective attribute of bestowal in which we will discover the Creator.

At the same time we shouldn’t forget all the groups and all our friends who are not able to be with us in person for various reasons. We will not forget anyone.

We will also not forget the whole Israeli nation or the whole world as well.

We will constantly try to implement the inner impulse each of us has for connection during all the activities and the events in the convention in order to feel the hearts of the friends as one heart.

This is the feeling we should have as a result of the convention and we should try to hold on to it and keep it during the weekdays. In a couple of weeks we will have another convention and once again we will see to what extent our efforts in connecting help us advance.

If everyone is serious about his task of his contributions, we will really be able to achieve something.

Everyone should show others how serious he is and his readiness to attain the goal, to attain connection. He should show others that he works with an open heart with regard to others and to what extent he is attracted to the connection between them, to actually be connected heart to heart. This is the impression and the inspiration we should receive from everyone. Everyone has to set an example as to how much they want and yearn to be connected and how much they want to shatter all the partitions between us.

We must get closer and closer to one another so that everyone will see to what extent he annuls the shell (Klipot) of his body (Guf). It is our obligation to continue these efforts.
[148939]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Workshop

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “What ‘You Have Given the Strong to the Hands of the Weak’ Means in the Work”

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” 

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Question: How can a person still annul oneself?

Answer: One does this out of desperation and hopelessness. This takes place on the condition that the person doesn’t run away. If one comes to class twice a week instead of seven times and doesn’t become included in the group, one prolongs time. Of course, nothing is ever lost, and even the smallest exertion still counts. But the question still stands, how big is this contribution?

Put together a clear schedule for yourself, such as group work and dissemination, and then begin to implement it without any desire. The heart is where the deeds are. That’s the way our world is, and it’s a good thing that it’s been designed this way. After all, we can awaken our hearts with the help of deeds.

People adopt someone else’s child, put forth efforts and begin to love this child. At first, they don’t have any natural love towards it, but later this child becomes more loved by them than a biological child. The point is that this requires a lot of effort.

We’ve put a lot of effort into our spiritual development as well. But it still needs to be analyzed to find out what it gave us. We fall into despair, and this is very good! The disappointment shouldn’t throw us back home—in the place where the children of Israel cried out from the hard work.

A man is obliged to embark on the next level of work, but one escapes it, since after all, one gets disappointed. A person thinks that the result is obvious, and can’t comprehend that disappointment is this result. This should be a desired and correct result at a person’s current level.

While a person thinks that no results were ever achieved and there was no success, he accuses the group, the teacher himself, and decides to quit. The only one thing to blame here is the misunderstanding of the revelation to a person that one does not have the power to get closer to the Creator. What could be better than such a state?

There should be no happier moments in life than when all of the attempts of a person fail. We see that the friends who were with us for years didn’t understand this and left. Each one of us can be in their place, as it is said “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die,” that is, until death of egoism and complete correction of your desire.

In this state, it is necessary to drag yourself to the lesson by force and try to wake yourself up, engage with the group and get the group’s strength. This is where the work is.

There’s nothing particularly to enjoy when you wake up and feel inspired right off the bat. But if you wake up with an effort and drag yourself by force and start to awaken and force yourself to work, then you really do the job. You must love this work by which you awaken yourself from the state of unconsciousness.
[149017]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/14, Writings of Rabash

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Shamati #15 “What Is Other Gods in the Work”

The Book of Zohar “Introduction,” “General Explanation for All Fourteen Commandments and How They Divide Into Seven Days of Creation,” Item 12

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 16, Item 56

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: And humanity has already thrown itself to the extreme right, as with Germany, or to the extreme left, as with Russia. But not only did they not ease the situation for themselves, they have worsened the malady and agony, and the voices rise up to the sky, as we all know. 

Today all the means that were useful in the past are invalid. It makes no difference how we choose to advance, what plans we make, or what recommendations or innovations we come up with. Eventually all this will only deepen the crisis we are in, force us to waste our powers in vain, and increase pain and suffering.

So what can we do? A wise man tries to identify the whole process in advance from beginning to end in regards to a predetermined goal. If we do this, we will certainly save ourselves pain and follow the way that will still bring us to the same outcome.

On the other hand, as long as we keep postponing the only possible correction, the unpleasant phases will only be stretched out and prolonged. If we continue to advance along the corporeal egoistic plane, we raise our ego each time and overcome the bad states that are revealed. Our ego keeps on growing and we invent more and more new sophisticated innovations in technology, means of communication, or legislation.

Instead of a king, we have a parliament; we save money in bank accounts and give priority to private enterprises. Why is this so? In order to give people different opportunities to fulfill the egoistic desire and thus keep advancing. We are in perpetual motion, and on each level we discover its worthlessness the moment when we cannot satisfy the demands of our developing desire by ourselves and it forces us to keep on developing.

Today, the desire has reached a certain level of satiation and now we can decide what to do with it. It doesn’t matter what means we try, nothing is successful. Matter, the desire to receive, which has been the basis for the development of human society for thousands of years, is no longer fruitful. Competition can no longer be the engine of progress.

We are in search of new directions, trying to understand what else we can do. But we find nothing. There are no more opportunities in industry, commerce, or science. We have fulfilled and exhausted ourselves.

Of course, we would rather believe that this is a temporary dead end before a new breakthrough, but there is a fundamental problem here: We have developed society only in order to use the power of our ego. Today the ego doesn’t work anymore.

Therefore, we mustn’t continue our advancement in the directions that we have developed so far. The egoistic force, the basis of our progress has exhausted itself. We can already see that it has begun to consume itself.

In the past, a person wanted to have a family, bring up his children, build a home, and become rich. Only a decade or two ago, these goals and demands were clearly understood. But today, many people are not attracted to it. The old values are suddenly gone. It is therefore better to sit and smoke a joint, which has become practically legal, and that’s it.

Humanity has lost the hold and supporting pillar of the ego, which has been our engine of progress throughout history. Although governments and the media still manage to blur reality, there is actually nowhere else to which we can advance.

If we continue to hold on to the peak and keep on delving deeper into the diminishing pool of opportunities, the troubles will only increase. The more we continue to advance along this path, the quicker our negative development will be. The wrong use of the ego and its overuse in our times will eventually show us that it doesn’t work anymore. The uselessness of self-love is now becoming evident.

We already see behavioral mutations in the relations between people and countries. Many don’t even want to think rationally as to whether it is good or bad for them, but simply act out of their impulses and prefer not to think about the outcomes. Thus the ordinary egoistic behavior is gradually changing.

This is a very dangerous phase since it can lead to an outburst in any possible direction. Therefore, the wisdom of Kabbalah is being revealed, and although it is seemingly an artificial thing, unnatural for us, it is actually the right and natural thing.

If we have already exhausted our human egoistic impulse to advance and develop, then there is only one thing left to do: ascend to the next level that is above self-love. There is another force in the world besides the force of receiving, which is the force of bestowal. So why don’t we establish a new humanity on the basis of this attribute? Why don’t we establish our relationships upon it? Let’s use the second force in nature. We mustn’t continue to ignore bestowal. It has always been at our disposal, but we didn’t feel a need for it because the ego pushed us forward and considered the force of bestowal redundant.

The force of receiving burnt in us more and more and we didn’t even think that bestowal provides us with greater opportunities to advance. It is because with the help of bestowal we use the external vessels of the environment, which are the desires, the attainments, the connections and the great mind, the great force that is on the outside. We never even thought that we could develop along the positive path with the help of the force of bestowal.

Bestowal is based on mutual benefit. It opens up infinite perspectives because humanity can finally unite powers instead of wasting them on inner struggles, because it is actually the separation that weakens us. It is just like a rich couple who gets divorced and their lawyers get all their money. Eventually the two sides are left with nothing compared to what they had before.

On the whole, competition and ambitiousness help us advance only if we don’t directly compete with one another on the basis of mutual hate, but instead, we do this on the conceptual level, for the sake of humanity. Today the competition between us is who is better and whose merchandise is better. In this kind of struggle each one wants to wipe out the competition, which is a destructive state not a constructive one. In such cases it isn’t the general wellbeing that wins and it is therefore harmful to all of us.

We have now begun a period of destructive competition. As a result, the ego begins to consume itself and becomes an illness that destroys people. In the past the ego was the developing force, but now it has become a destructive force.
[146290]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We are a result of the shattering that has left such a breach between us that no one feels anyone else, although all of humanity is part of everyone’s soul. No one can imagine that we are one soul and that we have to correct the relations between us to such an extent that there will be no difference between the way a person feels himself and the way he feels others.

What is more, we have to reach “love thy friend as thyself.” I should love others more than I love myself just as I love myself now by making myself stand out among others. This means that I have to totally ascend above my desire to receive and to see the whole true reality.

We keep on failing in this work, and so we have to constantly help one another and spur each other on. A person cannot awaken himself; only the friends can awaken him to connection.

The connection has to be whole, and it is from this whole connection that we learn and attain the Creator’s attributes. It is because we can never learn the actual phenomenon that takes place in our vessels but only the impressions and the feeling a certain phenomenon invokes in us and the actual vessels.

The soul is filled with Light, yet we don’t feel the actual Light but rather the reaction of the vessel to it, the impression of the vessel. It is just like how instruments in our world work: the dial in an instrument moves and the instrument responds to the effect of a certain force. We identify and see its reactions and attribute it to the force that operates in the instrument.

We don’t feel the actual force, but only the response of the instrument to a certain unknown influence. This is how we discover the Creator, through the feeling and the impression of the vessel from His presence. This means that the filling of the vessel is also vessels, letters, in addition to the initial HaVaYaH.

These additional letters are like a code, a key that stands for every filling in the vessel. It is as if there is a dial that moves in this vessel or numbers on a counter. This means that we can never feel the Light itself, but feel and notice the changes that the Light performs on us.

We measure these changes, feel and count them and then we call these changes Light. We have no access to the Light itself since the Light is already the actual upper force.

Therefore, we should understand that the revelation of the Creator is a certain kind of vessel, the impression in a vessel. We have to study and to reveal how the vessel should be impressed and how it should respond, how it has to prepare itself so that it will be sensitive enough and ready for the revelation of the Upper Light in it.
[148872]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/14, Writing of Rabash

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