Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”: This is why our sages said, “Israel is the fiercest of the nations,” as one whose mind is broader is most obstinate.

This is a psychological law. And if you do not understand me, go and study this lesson among the contemporary members of the nation: While we have only begun to build, time has already disclosed our fierceness and assertiveness of the mind, and that which one builds, the other ruins.

…This is known to all, but there is only one innovation in my words: They believe that in the end, the other side will understand the danger and will bow his head and accept their opinion.

This is exactly how different parties in parliament—members of the same party and any person against himself—fight. This division means that everything is in contrast to everything else. Everyone insists on what they believe. Everyone zealously guards his own views, expecting his rival to succumb and agree with him. The parties insist and confront each other, competing as to who is stronger and who is more determined. It makes no difference whose approach is more just since they are all after who will rule. Everyone is looking for the means to dominate others by force and/or cunningness.

There is no hope for peace and for correction under such conditions. It is clear that the people are under the domination of all these rivals and never will really benefit from the “circus” at the top.

We, however, must have no part in this struggle. We turn to the people only for one reason: to connect everyone and set an example of how connection helps us organize things and win. It isn’t about beating others, but about beating the problems. This is the only way we can act, and this is actually what Baal HaSulam tried to convey to Ben Gurion (the first Israeli prime minister) and to other leaders. He tried to explain how to establish the right relationships in government and how to build society and the state.

Generally speaking, we can be part of the municipal, state, or global leadership, but only if you are strong enough to hold onto connection between everyone and constantly work on that. In that case, it makes no difference what issue is discussed, whether it is national security, education, housing, problems of different parts of the population, and so on. You only say one thing: It is possible to correct it on the basis of connection and we must establish the right relationships between people. Later, based on this, we can solve any problem (if there any are left) after we connect correctly.

According to this approach, we don’t take part in the general quarrel, but rather accumulate the power given to us by the people so that eventually we will subdue all the quarrelers by the main solution, which is the need for integral education and the connection of the people. Even if they don’t believe us, it is important that we reach a mutual agreement that will allow us to fulfill this method. It already will bring about the changes.

We never should argue with anyone about anything, no matter what, except for the one main thing: that we can reach a solution only through integral education and the connection between us.

This is the difference between us and the others since they discuss the solution for a certain problem, while we speak about the universal means, about the approach that we must fulfill in order to solve any problem. Generally speaking, we see this world as a means for correction, and they see it as an arena for their activities. We think that we should correct ourselves, and they believe that we should correct the world. It is a huge difference, the difference between the cause and the effect.

One might wonder how connection is relevant to housing, to the educational system, and to other problems. We say that we should connect first and then solve the problems. In the meantime, people are receiving integral education gradually, and the problems disappear. When a person’s nature changes as a result of the right educational method, he already begins to look at life differently.

We still must clarify this mechanism, but it already is clear that there are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. The advantage is that we don’t fight others on their territory. As long as they fight, we sit aside since we know that none of their solutions will work, but only our solution. Why? It is since they don’t understand the main thing: that the problem in the world is the lack of connection. This is where all the problems stem from. So, instead of discussing endless numbers of problems, we must treat the root of the problems: the fact that we are separated.

However, in order to grow stronger and activate the means and the resources needed to fulfill integral education, we need great support from the public. We must turn to the public, avoiding any arguments, and receive the power from the people. We don’t need power in order to prove that someone has beaten someone else. On the contrary, we work where we have no competition. No one else can be where we are.

On the other hand, however, this is also a disadvantage. The struggles between them are evident. People go out to the street in order to achieve something, and the leaders talk about that. We are very abstract, vague, and may seem to speak about a fantasy of some blurry connection among people. However, if we do succeed in explaining that the real power is in the connection between us and that it will help us change our lives, we will be able to draw very far away from all the “wise guys” and advance safely along our path.

As long as society assumes that everything depends on blind fate, the parties will continue to argue about the methods and the solutions for different problems. However, in fact, no one can solve them since they stem from nature and it requires the understanding of the general system that currently is concealed from humanity. So, we must connect it to the force of the Light, to be the link, and then we will succeed in carrying out our mission.
[114662]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Israel Has No Future Without Unity
Regulators Of Spiritual Traffic
Servants Of The World

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Israel, Nations of the World - 1 Comment →

Question: All kinds of thoughts and desires are awakened in me and I find myself in all kinds of states in life. If I know that they all come from the Creator, how should I react to them? How can I strengthen the link with the Creator through them?

Answer: First, if I am detached from the Creator, I must be sorry about this. After all, in our world there cannot be anything worse than detachment from the connection with him.

Therefore, I need to hold myself “on the line”, and not forget that this is the Creator who constructs all of reality for me. He portrays in my imagination this “picture of existence” that is drawn with the five senses: There is myself, the world in which I exist, and there is some kind of external force that causes this sensation for me. And so I don’t want to divert my glance from this “picture” with the three components: I, the world, and the Creator. To the degree that I relate the feeling of myself and of the world within me to the Creator, to that degree I am found in a connection with him.

In the meantime this link is not apparent, not clear, but is already felt internally. In order to strengthen it, I need a group, study, and teacher—the unique part of the reality that I can use. All the rest of reality is opposite from the Creator and conceals Him from me. It only confuses me, even though this is for my own good. In contrast to this, the teacher, the group, and the study help me on the way if I relate to them correctly, don’t make light of them, but value and respect them. When I want to approach them, they approach me, are ready to help me and influence me more strongly. Thus I also try at every moment of my life to go together with the higher power.

And the picture of reality is the divider between us until I discover its activity in everything that happens between me and the higher power. And then the entire world transforms into a bridge that links between us.

When I look at everything that happens to me, in thoughts and desires, and at what happens in the external world, I want to see the thought of creation behind all of this: Why does the Creator act like this? As is understood, He acts for my own good and helps me build the right connection. And I am excited all the time and from morning to evening go through an incessant series of exercises.

In other words, I must keep in the direction of the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. “Israel,” this is me trying to discover the Creator, and specifically by discovering the Creator, I see my goal, the “Torah,” this is the entire world that I must connect into one Kli, one desire. Gradually I discover my part and my Kli to which I relate without hatred already, but with love and empathy. After all, I know that behind them stands the Creator, and therefore these parts lose their negative character. Now I look at them like I look at the Creator who activates them in order to change my attitude.

In a form like this, I begin to love the worst things in the world, and they transform into the best means of advancement for me. This is speaking about the hatred, the ugliest events, wars, and so forth. Suddenly they transform into states that bring me closer to the Creator, and by way of them, on a background of threats and pain, I feel how the negativity transforms into a good, wonderful feeling, into absolute love from the side of the Creator. The evil transforms to good.

In the essay, “The Creator’s Concealment and Revelation,” Baal HaSulam explains this transformation. The concealment adds a minus to everything, and so everything in my eyes is harmful, all people are evil, the payoff is not enough, and the family endures illness, and so on. And suddenly I see an opposite picture: Everyone is healthy, the payoff is enough, there are no enemies, there aren’t bad and disgusting people, and so forth.

Everything depends on discovering the higher supervision. It is not necessary to correct anything externally; there is only one task: to discover the guidance of the Creator.

This changes our relationship to correction from the root. It becomes clear that only the work between us, with whose help we are strengthened in order to discover the higher supervision, can change the world. And therefore, if we advance in a large group that makes massive and widespread dissemination to the degree that the Creator reveals its potential, with this we transform all parts of reality into active parts directed at discovery of the Creator.

After all, I feel the world and myself with my desire as two parts: an inner Kli and an outer Kli. And this is saying that I simply connect to myself, attribute to myself, more and more parts, in particular those that are related to human nature in which there is free choice, and after that, according to the degree of correction, also the parts of the nature of the still, vegetative, and animate.

This happens like this. First we attract to ourselves the components of the still, vegetative and animate that relate to human nature, and then their counterparts that are portrayed for us as the animate, vegetative, and still of this world are also combined with us. Thus all of reality transforms into being a single corrected Kli.

What is derived from all this is that we lack only one thing—maximal connection—so that with the help of the teacher, the group, and the study, it will be possible to make all of us as active a part as possible that is directed throughout the day towards discovering the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator.

In addition to this, the Creator appoints us to correct the entire external world: our external parts, the desires, the external Kelim. And we are obliged to combine them also, to discover in them the guidance of the Creator who is good and does good, that there is none else besides Him.

Therefore, a person must seek the Creator at every moment when he grasps the end of the rope, the thought, or the desire that is a reminder of the higher guidance that he is required to discover.
[114131]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/07/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
Practical Work Makes Room For The Revelation
How To Never Be Detached From The Creator
“Seek The Lord Where He Is”

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Prayer and Intention, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “Among All the Sages of the Nations of the World, There Are None Like You,” Item 167, Lesson 62

Talmud Eser Sefirot Vol. 6, Part 15

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Messiah’s Horn“

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →

The tens should not be isolated from each other. None of them should feel that it is separate or distinct from others.

I join the group of ten in order to neutralize my ego and be loyal to the whole world. If I do not come to this feeling, if I am not loyal to the world, not connected to it, this means that my ten is useless because it does not prepare me properly.

The group of ten is a mini-world in which I am learning how to be integrated with others. If I am not included in them, I do not arrange my ego as it should be—in the direction from the love for the created being to the love for the Creator.

In the group of ten, I should carry out various exercises of exiting myself to feel myself “extended,” “spread out” between everyone. I do not exist, do not feel myself, my individuality, my “self,” and the group of ten has to help me in that. “Each man shall help his neighbor”; this is how we have to be connected with each other.

As a result, our common desire, belonging to everyone, has to burn in the “center” of the group of ten. I feel in this desire that there are no “me” and “others,” but only “WE.”

On the basis of this unity, we think, feel, and make decisions—only from US. I resist all that is called “I,” and raise and nurture all that relates to US. Only our unity stems from my thoughts and feelings, and through it, like through glasses or binoculars, I look at the world all around.

A certain inner effort is necessary here in order to “dissipate” my “Self,” not allowing the focus on it, but keeping focus only on the center of the group where WE are together, and seeing the world, reality, in this way. Nothing that does not belong to US exists for me.

A person has to live and work in this inner effort as much as possible. For it is through the center of the group of ten that he imagines that he will get the Light that Reforms.

However, to focus on US, on the center of the ten correctly, the whole group of ten has to hold the intention to bestow. How is it verified? In its relation to other groups of ten and to the world. When the group of ten becomes one whole, when ten men become one, this unity acquires volume, and again it is reduced to one and acquires volume, until finally we come to the One, the Creator.

So, the criterion of our unity is the desire of the group of ten to get connected with others and become one whole with them. How can we do this? How can we test ourselves?

I can check myself if I enter any group of ten and feel like I am within my own group. There are no primary or secondary groups of tens, and I do not care which one I am in. I simply connect to the people who want to unite, connect without any distinction.

To make our work as pure as possible, we cannot consider the current group of ten as our “home,” and all the rest as a “foreign territory.” No, all the people who want to unite is my “territory,” the same group of ten. It is sufficient that they have a small attraction to unity, and I can already be together with them.
[115066]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/13, Conversation About the Tens

Related Material:
The World Through The “Sights”
Ten, Not Nine Or Eleven
The Starting Point Of The Spiritual Line

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Spiritual Work, The Tens - No Comments →

There are people who have the aspiration to reveal the Creator, the spark in the heart. To the extent that they work to connect these sparks between themselves with the help of the Light that Reforms, the Light reigns in them. And if they also strive to connect with those who do not have longing for the Creator, they can also shine on their lives the Light that they received earlier in the work with each other.

That is, first there is work in the group, where due to the connection we accumulate the Light between ourselves. Then we can reach out to the general public that does not seek the revelation of the Creator and become the glue that connects everyone together, to transfer there a bit of received Light. And from them we can receive the desire to unite, to become corrected.

They do not understand that these desires are directed to unity and correction, they perceive them as individual failures, the problems of this world. But in fact, these are the same eternal questions of existence and problems because everything depends on whether you are closer to or further from the Light, from the Creator. We have to hear a prayer in every problem, every cry born in this world, even in the dead stone, a plant, or animal.

Any type of creation lacks only the revelation of the Creator. But we can approach this deliberately by our free choice, and that is why we must take responsibility for all kinds of creatures and provide them with connection. In this way we fulfill the desire of the Creator.

The greater devotion and self-denial with which those who are called Israel “Yashar-El” (directed “straight to the Creator”) perform their work, the more the whole world becomes corrected. Conversely, if they still ignore the work assigned to them, the whole world suffers, and this suffering is ultimately returned to Israel in order to rush them to begin correction.

Therefore, there is no need to perceive these problems as suffering. All the rewards and punishment are whether we perform or do not perform the desire of the Creator. This is the entire reward and the entire punishment.
[115077]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/13

Related Material:
Daily Work For The Sake Of The Final Correction
Connecting The Entire World To The Creator
Working With Our Desires Independently

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Israel, Nations of the World, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

The Creator has created the desire to enjoy and prepares it for adhesion with Himself, meaning for the final state that this desire has to reach, to want to become similar to the Light. Inside, it remains the same desire to enjoy, but externally it takes the form of the Light, the property of bestowal.

In order for the desire to enjoy wanting to become like the Creator, that is, wishing for adhesion, it needs to have the properties of the Light in addition to its property of reception. And it also has to explore its property, to understand, feel, and become aware of its attachment to it and want to get rid of it, that is, to comprehend it in the direct and opposite form. Besides that, it also needs to understand and feel the desire of bestowal, and compare them with each other.

It turns out that the Creator created this desire to be versatile and combine many shades of these two properties: the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow. On the basis of inclusion of one property into another, it begins to understand every property, and after all the scrutiny, it obtains the mind, the head, that is, intention, the ability to make conscious actions.

But with all this complexity of the desire to enjoy, consisting of a clever weave of properties of reception and bestowal in the mind and heart, that is, in intention and action, in the thought and feeling, in essence, there is only one important point—the point of freewill. And the rest is managed by this point.

If the created being attains this point, then it is called “Yashar-El” (straight to the Creator), Israel. And everything else that the created being has inside of his understanding, attainment, mutual inclusion of desires, intentions, and thoughts, except for this point, does not belong to Israel, but belongs to its consequence, this point of freedom of choice, and everything else flows from it.

The Creator is the property of bestowal and treats both sinners and righteous kindly. No change ever occurs in Him. The desire to enjoy, except this one point Israel, is completely in the power of its nature. It can change, but solely due to the only free change that is possible in this system, which is called the point of Israel.

Therefore, we must understand that the upper force and the desire to enjoy are at absolute rest. The only element of creation that can change and decide something is Israel. Consequently, there is no need to look at those who have no point in the heart since they have no freedom of choice. Although they look like people, they are not those people, the sons of Adam, who are similar (Domeh) to the Creator, like the point in the heart.

So, no matter what happens in this world, regardless of how they attack and mock us or if they are for or against us, all this is the demonstration of the desire to enjoy in relation to us. It only shows us the need to make our free choice in order to bring it to adhesion with the Creator. That is our job.
[114886]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13

Related Material:
Who Really Depends On Whom?
The Power Is In The Head
What Will Bring Me To The Root Of My Soul?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Free Will, Israel, Nations of the World, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

We represent the adapter between the Creator and creation, a connecting link, the chosen nation,  the “kingdom of priests.” We are the ones that received this mission from the Creator and each day we must hear these instructions anew from Mount Sinai, understand that the entire world is nothing but a desire to receive that is perceived within us in forms of still, vegetative, animate, and human nature. Our mission is to bring all of these levels to adhesion with the Creator.

Other people don’t have any freedom of will, no independent actions or thoughts; nothing is within their control. The upper force acts within them and puts them before us in order to give us work, which is to lead them toward the Creator. By means of this work, we will reach the exalted mission that rests upon the nation of Israel.

We must have this outlook with regard to all of reality and the entire picture that is being presented within our desire to receive. It doesn’t matter how we imagine actions in dissemination or work to attain unity and search for the upper force that corrects and unites us, bringing us to a good life, but naturally by all of this we imply adhesion with the Creator.

In our eyes the entire universe is divided into two halves: the Creator and the desire that needs to be brought to adhesion with Him. Through this work we will attain adhesion with the Creator. Such is our mission and it’s the only work that exists in reality. After all, everything else simply unfolds in accordance with the program of creation in which there is no freewill or work on the creature’s part.

Any time we appeal to people, to the physical nation of Israel or to the nations of the world, in all of them, we must see the desire that we have to bring to adhesion with the Creator. And even though we are talking to people in simple terms, we must always remember the Creator and that He ordered this work and chose us to be His servants and His holy nation, meaning a buffer or His representatives. Besides Him, there exists the “material” without freedom of will, meaning all those who don’t possess the desire to be closer to the Creator, and we have to bring them to this adhesion. Therein lies our mission.

A person that carries out this work and tries even in the most external form to bring this “human material” to the Creator is performing the most important mission. Even though it’s just the beginning, it’s more important than anything else. We must understand, feel, and set our intention so that our beginning action includes the end result, which is to bring the still, vegetative, animate, and human nature to adhesion with the Creator. In the beginning of each action we have to understand that we are making it for the sake of final correction.
[114883]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13

Related Material:
Do We Hasten Time?
The Unique Work Of The Spiritual Adaptor
An Adapter Between The Creator And The Creature

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Israel, Nations of the World, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Question: Why is dissemination in our time counted as real spiritual work?

Answer: The world has changed and has become ready for it. We were preparing ourselves for this time and could continue to just study and not go out to the public, remaining in a state of expectation like an engine in neutral. That is, the engine is running, but at a very low speed and idling. There is barely a zing of life in it.

In this state, we could exist until the end of our lives as the Kabbalists of the past did, but they lived in a different time when they could reveal all these properties with no connection with the lower. However, we are in a situation when we cannot realize our spiritual vessel without connection with people because it needs to communicate with the desires of the general public.

Therefore, without dissemination, we will achieve nothing besides what we already have. We could spend another five to ten years with little progress. We are developing, adding new groups, but this adds to us very little desire with which we could work and from which we would be able to reach the Creator. To do this, we need the desire of the degree lower in relation to us, not coming from the point of the heart: The desire that comes from integral connection.

If the connection had not been revealed that now is seen between all parts of humanity—broken and terrible, protectionistic, full of hatred, and rejection of others with the desire to use one another—we would not have been able to get from people their desire. Humanity has suffered throughout all of millennia not less than today and even much more. However, today, its desire acquired a new quality that comes from the corrupt network of connection between people.

That is why we can take their desire and raise them to the Creator. They already have what needs to be corrected! There is no need to correct the desire of any person. It is necessary to correct just the connection between them, the overall network. It was not revealed in the past, and that is why Kabbalists could not get closer to people. In our days, the crisis is manifested as a consequence of the broken network of connections revealed as the cause of the crisis. Thus, we can take the damaged connections between people and correct them.

We work only with these connections and not with the desires caused by a lack of money, health, family problems, children, and work. No matter what individual desires exist in everyone, the main thing is that, in our days, they are revealed in such a form that they cannot be solved by conventional methods. It was possible in the past, but not today.

We see that science, psychology, medicine, human relationships, parenting, and the attitude to work all falls apart because it is discovered that there is a corrupt network of connections between us. It is revealed as the cause of all evil. Kabbalists are aware of this, but, according to studies, ordinary science also is beginning to come to such conclusions.

That is why we can take this corrupt network and ask for its correction. That is what needs to be corrected because during the breaking, no vessel was broken. Its connections with others were broken. Therefore, all the corrections are made in your relationships with others. As it is written, “Don’t do unto others what you would not want done to you,” “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and “You shall love your Maker.” All corrections apply only to connections.
[114737]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13

Related Material:
Connections In The Crystal Network
Don’t Hold Onto Your Pocket, But To Each Other
How To Grow From Zero To Infinity

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “A Handmaid That Is Heir to Her Mistress:” Hence, the worlds have been divided into internality and externality, where each world contains illuminations suitable to operate in slow development. And these are called “the internality of the world.”

The system we are in is divided into internality and externality. This division relates to the Lights and the vessels, both to the direct and to the opposite correlation between them depending on if we speak about the corrected vessels or the corrupt ones.

Accordingly, we should understand what it means for us after the preparation in the spiritual system and the creation of the corporeal system. It is actually also a spiritual system, but we perceive it as the current fictitious world. I discover that I exist in a certain reality with people and the still, vegetative, and animate nature  around me. It is as if everyone lives on his own here, moving around independently, operating and influencing others. After I reveal all that, I must attribute myself, together with the whole picture that is depicted inside me to one cause, to one source, to one goal, to a simple reality in which there is none else besides Him, and that He is good and benevolent. The point that is created as “something from nothing” remains in me only in order to determine that everything else is Him.

We must connect everything that is outside that point to the perception of the upper, the Creator. This is our work, and everyone who feels that he has a point in the heart—”something from nothing” and who feels different from the eminent—participates in it.

The work is divided into two parts:

1. Strengthening the point in the heart by connecting the points that can be connected to it for the sake of the spiritual goal. These are the members of the group, my friends along the spiritual path, who actually are parts of my soul, of my point in the heart.
2. In addition, there are other parts that are not directly connected to this goal. They don’t feel “something from nothing,” but rather, “something from something,” and they don’t ask complicated questions that stem from the point in the heart, from the opposite form. They live their lives and don’t feel any deficiency but that. I also need to connect them to my work according to the type and size of the desires that are revealed inside them.

Eventually, I connect all of reality: the whole desire to receive that is before me—that is at my disposal, inside me, no matter how you put it—to the attribute of bestowal and love called the Creator. It seems that I correct the world, but in fact, I fulfill my private correction. This is because there is nothing in the world but one man and one Creator. A person is the point of “something from nothing” that operates in order to bring it back to “something from something,” everything that seems separate from it.
[114668]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

Related Material:
From Multiplicity To Unity
A Point Which Encompasses The Whole Process
Correction Begins With Those Who Have Awakened

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Dissemination, Group Work, Perception, Spiritual Work - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Meaning of Conception and Birth,” Lesson 11

The Book of Zohar — Introduction, “A Handmaid that Is Heir to Her Mistress“

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Zohar - No Comments →