Question: There was a feeling at the convention that every second a thought, a desire, was renewed and grew, and no moment was wasted. But after that, when we need to add more to that image of the unified man that we have created, instead of multiplying it, conversely, we are losing what we have achieved. What can we do when we go out into the world, when we become confused and cannot preserve the former state because our thoughts are running in other directions?

Answer: Going into the external world, you need to be in even greater tension because it has been created as a means to increase the previously reached degree. And if that does not work—this means that you do not feel yourself within the group.

Imagine that you are a scout sent by your friends to a foreign territory in order to find out the situation there. What will you tell them when you come back? Are you going to be like those scouts who were sent to the land of Israel and upon their return said that we would not be able to cope with the people who inhabit it and we will be defeated by egoism?

This is still called the development by the path of suffering because this takes places in the conditions of descent, alienation. If you feel that you slide lower and gradually come out of holiness, it means that you have already become disconnected from the upper force. In order for you to become included in the environment, you as if lock yourself in a submarine, in order to seek the upper force with which you will achieve mutual bestowal, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

But being torn from this upper, internal force, you also pull yourself from the environment. Everything is connected by a chain: Israel, the Torah (group), the Creator. Since you are separated from the Creator, you also become excluded from Israel because you are no longer aimed “straight to the Creator” (Yashar-El). At the same time, your group turns from the gathering of Kabbalists into a crowd of clowns.

It is a critical point. We cannot keep ourselves in this environment because it lacks the general force of bestowal, the revelation of the Creator. We need to keep it with all our strength as much as possible. Otherwise, we will not have the motivation, the reason, to reach this environment and connect to it more and more strongly.

You need to work on this point, which is still clouded, by focusing your attention on it, and gradually it will begin to become clear. As if it were not visible and then began to emerge from the fog due to various other reasons, events, “from your actions I will know you.”
[112813]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/18/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we correctly picture the need for the Creator’s presence in the void that was formed between us?

Answer: It is essential that He should control that void. Keep on exploring the empty space and enter it more deeply. If the Creator doesn’t control this void, we will undoubtedly escape any connection with the friends, any form of bestowal.

This is the whole difference between the ten Sefirot of the lower level and the upper level. What used to be the cause on the lower level becomes the means on the upper level. In the previous state we felt connection and unity with the friends, but now we don’t feel that, and so we need the Creator to connect us. On the next upper level, the opposite will happen: Here I need the Creator in order to remain connected so that He will keep the state of the convention for me, and later all the convention and the whole empty state that was created will only be designated for revealing the Creator.

This is a qualitative difference between the levels, when Malchut of the upper becomes Keter of the lower. It is a change of the cause and the effect, which means that the reason that I do it changes. It is like a child who uses his parents when he is young and when he grows, he uses himself in order to help them. Another example is the guest and the host, when the host tries to do everything for me and serves me different refreshments, and if I, the guest, rise to an upper level, I repay the host for all his kindness. The cause and the effect change places.

This is why we feel empty now after the pleasant state we felt during the convention. There we felt the connection with the friends and it was nice and pleasant. Now this feeling is gone and we want to return to the same feeling. But what can help us here when we cannot bring it back and this feeling cools down and disappears. Only the Creator can preserve it, but where is He? We must feel His presence.

Then we begin to understand that it isn’t about drawing the Creator into our state so that He can correct it, but rather about using this state of the revelation of the Creator in order to bring Him contentment. We don’t wait for Him to bring us contentment anymore but rather use this emptiness in order to ask the Creator to reveal Himself so that we will be able to bring Him contentment.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/13

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You can value yourself only according to the extent that your heart worries about others: your group, our global society, and the whole world too. You may not attain it all at once, but in stages, yet eventually it should all become the most important thing for you.

At first you will see that the group is the most important thing for you, and then our whole global society and finally the whole world. But then everything will turn the other way around: the world will become the most important thing and the global society, the group, and yourself will only be the means for conveying the Upper Light to the whole world.

So you can value your advancement according to how important you consider everyone else and worry that everyone should know and discover the Creator. It turns out that a prayer is the indication of where a person is.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/16/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Love of the Creator and the Love of the Created Being”: By that the creature develops in the degrees of the above sublimity until one loses any form of self-love and self-reception. In that state, one’s every attribute is either to bestow or to receive in order to bestow. Our sages said about that, ‘The Mitzvot were only given in order to cleanse people with,’ and then one cleaves to one’s root, as it says, ‘and to cleave onto Him.’

Why are we here in this world, the worst of all possible worlds, at the step below which there is nothing? Only for one reason, to learn to bestow and go through all the stages on the way until we reach full adaptation to the Creator, which is called “to cleave onto Him.”

This is what the wisdom of Kabbalah tells us. It corrects the evil inclination that was initially given to us and which develops in us. This means that we have to learn how to correctly use the method which has the Light that Reforms and learn to do the right actions in order to provoke this Light, since it corrects us and thus we advance.

Actually these are all the actions we have to perform, actions of bestowal by which we always provoke the greatest Light that Reforms upon ourselves. It already knows which desire needs to be corrected and what the phases of correction are. We don’t have to do its job since in the meantime we cannot even speak about it. Let it correct us since it is its business and we just have to give it a chance. This is what it depends on, and giving it a chance is our responsibility.

So there is nothing else we can do but actions by which we bring contentment to the other and help him. Why? This is the commandment of the upper. I don’t care about the other at all and I don’t want to get to know him; I don’t feel him at all. But there is an upper force and it obliges me to do so and explains to me that it is by such actions that I can bring it contentment. Thus I turn to the other.

It is therefore clear that if I help the other without the intention of bringing the Creator contentment, these are false actions that lead me to the opposite result, to destruction. It is because the Creator has created everything for so that we will reach Him. The nice urges to do something for the sake of humanity, like communism in Russia or the Kibbutzim movement, only lead to destruction.

I have to fulfill the principle of “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one” in all my actions. “Israel” is me, the “Torah” is the right connection between me and all of humanity starting from the people who are closest to me to the most distant, the connection that the Light that Reforms has established. The Creator is what is revealed as what encompasses this network.

The fulfillment is in the relations between people. The Light that Reforms carries it out and I evoke it, and everything is in order to allow the Creator to be revealed, since this is what brings Him contentment. So we mustn’t avoid the general, humanity, and especially the group, my group of ten…
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Preparation to the Lesson

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

The Book of Zohar — Introduction

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World”

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We must equally yearn for Israel, the Torah, and the Creator, so they will emerge into one whole. It is as if there is an equilateral triangle: Israel, the Torah, and the Creator and you yearn to be in the center of this triangle.

Israel is a person who yearns for the Creator. The Torah is the means by which we reach connection, the unity in the group. The Creator is revealed in the group. If these three components are equally important to us and are connected into one concept, we can advance.

These three components will constantly draw further apart and we have to try and connect them into one concept again, and to work in this way. If we don’t want the state that was attained in the convention to ever come to an end, we have to connect these three components and bring the upper force into this connection that will hold the whole convention together.

Of course, we will feel how this feeling cools down and fades a moment later. We will have to make sure that we connect and feel warmth, and repeat this time after time. It is the feeling of detachment and of cooling that is a sign of the expansion of the vessels and of our advancement.

Everything is measured according to the importance of the Creator, we can learn about His importance only realizing without Him, we cannot connect. Without our connection we cannot even come close to a spiritual state. We must understand that the descent and the detachment that we feel now is a space, a place that the Creator gives us into which we must bring Him. Then all our hopes and expectations will be filled.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/19/13

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Igrot,” “Letter 17“

The Book of Zohar — Introduction

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 15

Writings of Baal HaSulam “Peace in the World“

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During the convention we had the feeling that we were in a general vessel and all the differences between us disappeared, all the differences between people were simply erased. Everyone had certain personal feelings but only on the corporeal, physical level, a feeling of sickness or hunger, but above that there was one general feeling of connection.

But this feeling of connection was not clarified. We simply felt that we were together. Now, when the convention is over we have to assimilate this feeling of togetherness in order to expand this feeling and to add the mind, the understanding, and the discernments to it. This is called Sefirot, which we have to start “to count” – “Lispor” (from the same root in Hebrew) and to examine with accurate detail. Then we will see how we can actually work with the new vessels correctly.

This is possible only by adding to the previous level and ascending to the next level. From the next level we will be able to “count” the previous level. This is the only way to do it, from the state a person is in. In the current state, a person cannot attain such a Sefira (counting) since he needs the ten measures that are ready and enable him to count from Malchut to Keter and back.

This level is now being formed, and we cannot digest or count it yet or explain it in detail. The main thing now is to try to hold on to what we have attained and not to be satisfied with that, so that the descent will be from the desire to attain more!

The descent should not be in our feeling, not as a result of losing the pleasant feeling we had during the convention which is gone now. We have attained the feeling of the attribute of bestowal and now we want to hold on to it above the daily routine that will pull us away from it day after day.

We can use the vessels that we have now discovered as a standard, as a parameter, and can start establishing clear measures in us, which are called Din (judgement), mercy, the middle line, ten Sefirot from Keter to Malchut and back through the Returning Light, and different levels of Aviut (thickness). We can begin to compare which vessel is developed, where the apple is red and ripe and where the apple is small and green. In the meantime it’s not a conscious choice, just like a small child’s, but we will understand what and why we choose.
[112470]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: After the convention, why was there no feeling that it had ended and we quietly went home?

Answer: Indeed, there was no feeling that the convention was over, and that’s why it’s very important to hold yourself in this state. We need to recall the state that was there, to strive for it. But not because we felt good in it, rather because we don’t want to lose the sensation of bestowal in relation to others that we achieved there.

We want to remain in the same feeling. We need to distinguish clearly: a pleasant feeling or the feeling of belonging to a unified whole. This is a huge difference! I don’t care whether I feel pleasant or not. I don’t want to depend upon my feelings, but to stay only in bestowal, giving, and belonging; to swim in this single current wherever it takes me, as in the current of life.

Nothing else is required! Just keep this feeling of belonging to the unified world group, to the common vessel. This feeling of belonging must be felt within us so no disturbances can separate us. This will be keeping the covenant. If these concepts are imprinted in you, the “letters of work,” we will be able to reveal this theme more deeply, at a more inner level.

And it doesn’t matter here in what group a person is, in what place, in what city. Correction should be done here as well, so there is no feeling of difference.

I suggest opening a page on the Internet called “The Convention that Never Ends,” where everyone will be able to briefly share his impressions and support others, post excerpts from articles and clips. Everyone can visit it once or twice a day for five minutes and check whether he is in the same feeling of unity. Thus, we will support each other to feel belonging to that common desire, the state of unity, in which we were able to stay for a long time.

We have caught it well, and that is why we have no feeling that we are parting. We left without goodbyes and tears, and it’s very good. The separation on the physical level is not relevant to that spiritual connection that everyone has achieved, and thus he does not feel inside that he is parting. This is very important.
[112464]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/17/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What can I do so I will always hate evil?

Answer: In order to say that something is good or bad, we have to measure it compared to something. Therefore it says: “Those who love the Lord, hate evil,” this means that they always yearn for attaining an increasingly greater goodness. According to spiritual values, goodness is bestowal and evil is receiving. They actually establish an environment that constantly tells them that bestowal is good, and thus they advance. This is why they perceive it as the hatred of evil.

We discover the Upper Light, the attribute of bestowal and the concealed love according to the equivalence of form. This is why we have to constantly create and increase the attribute of bestowal inside us. The pure attribute of bestowal doesn’t exist in the created being. Instead there is the attribute of receiving with the intention of using it in order to bestow. If this is how we use our nature, in order to bestow, to give, in order to give as much as we possibly can, it means that we bestow.

It’s just like a baby who has nothing to give his mother except for the joy that she feels when he receives from her everything that she wants to give him. This is why receiving remains receiving but the intention of in order to bestow is added to it.
[112380]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/25/13, Shamati #54 “The Purpose of the Work”

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