After the recent convention in New Jersey, we feel a certain fogginess, a certain distraction, and an inability to concentrate. I understand that we have been through several days of very active clarifications and strong feelings, but we must transcend all that.

There is the person’s inner state, and there is the state of work, in which we must sustain ourselves by connecting above all the states we have been through in order to draw the Light that Reforms. If we wait for things to work out by themselves, we only will acquire an animal mind, but if we operate as a group and draw the Light that Reforms, the Light will come from Above and give us the upper, spiritual mind.

These are two different levels in which there is a totally different perspective. It is either an animal’s perspective or a perspective of man (Adam), similar to the Creator. We must choose now through whose eyes we want to look at reality. If we simply sit and wait without yearning for the inner group concentration, we will go back to the animal life, to the animal perspective.

We shouldn’t be afraid of leaving all our previous feelings and accounts and of expecting only the Light that Reforms, no matter which states it brings us. The main thing is to exert ourselves in drawing the Light. So, let’s make an effort and focus on that.
[107489]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 05/14/13, The Book of Zohar 

Related Material:
Wait Or Move Forward?
Coming Out Of The Fog
After The Convention: Under The Creator’s “Millstone”

Filed under: Conventions, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Group Work, Inner Work, Zohar - No Comments →

Rabash, “What is the Preparation for the Receiving of the Torah”: As for the Lord, it says “and the Lord descended upon Mt. Sinai, at the top of the mountain.” And as for the people, it says “and they gathered at the bottom of the mountain.” And we should understand what a “mountain” means. A “mountain” (Har) originates from the word “doubts” (Hirurim), which is a person’s mind.

If we accept this message in our mind, it means that the Creator is at the top of the mountain, meaning that He operates that way and we feel and agree that we have no choice and that we must receive the Torah. It’s because after we understand that the evil inclination prepares us for burial, we must receive the Torah, to be saved from death, from this doomed life.

So where is our free will if we are naturally forced to receive the Torah? The evil inclination itself, which is our desire to enjoy this life, leaves us to this choice. But is this called receiving?

So when we gather at the foot of the mountain and discover our evil inclination, and opposite to it we reveal the Torah, it’s a start. We clearly understand that we begin to live under these conditions. Now as the evil inclination is revealed in every step we make, we have to decide: Why has it been revealed, why do I need it, and how can it be corrected by using the evil inclination and the Torah that was given for its correction correctly? Can we ascend to the Creator’s level, to the top of the mountain?

This is the preparation for the receiving of the Torah, but it’s only the preparation and not its fulfillment yet. Here we still act out of necessity: There is such a revelation that doesn’t leave us much choice. We see that we have an evil inclination and a means to correct it, the Torah, and if we refuse to accept it, this will be our burial place. Otherwise we have no chance of being saved from this life, which is worse than death, and so of course, a person accepts the condition he is given.

Free will appears later with every step a person makes along the way, when we begin to fulfill the Torah during the forty years in the desert. All these years of wandering are already the real levels of the receiving of the Torah, by which we rise higher and higher, until we reach the top of the mountain.
[107492]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/13

Related Material:
An Additional Awakening
Forced By The Stick Or By Choice?
Giving And Receiving

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Free Will, Group Work, Inner Work, Torah - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Concerning Love of Friends“

The Book of Zohar – Introduction

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 3, Part 10

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee“

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

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Because the Torah was not given to them before each and every one from Israel was asked if he agreed to take upon himself the Mitzva (precept) of loving others in the full measure, expressed in the words: “Love thy friend as thyself” (as explained in Items 2 and 3, examine it thoroughly there). This means that each and every one in Israel would take it upon himself to care and work for each member of the nation, and to satisfy all their every needs, no less than the measure imprinted in him to care for his own needs.

This condition seems clear, yet in fact, all of reality is concealed here, all that life can give us. And since there is only one condition that stands before us which must be maintained, “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” so everything that happens in my personal life, in relationship with myself, with my family, with the environment near and far, with humanity, with the world, everything that has happened to me up until this moment, must be directed towards only one goal. And at every moment I must check, have I lived it to reach love for others?

If I begin to evaluate myself in this way, then understandably, at every moment there will be many questions for me: “Why? What for? How is one thing connected to another? What do I get out of this?” and so forth. Rejection and resistance will grow, but if I truly want to clarify what must be clarified and corrected, then everything will be considered according to only one criterion, according to that phrase, “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

It’s written that this is a major rule in the Torah, in other words, this is the principle that includes all of reality, includes all of my incarnations, and in general, everything that has been. Therefore, someone who is ready to accept this principle as a basis, as a measuring rod for his life, he is ready to accept the Torah, the method of correction. You see, the whole Torah is designed only to realize this principle.

And conversely, someone who doesn’t direct himself towards this, he doesn’t need the Torah. He can read it, be interested in it as a historian, or use it in some other way. Throughout history, everyone has wandered through it as they saw fit. That said, the true Torah is revealed to me, moves me, and opens the way before me only on condition that I aspire to “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”

In this way I begin from a distance, from the greatest resistance, from an absolute lack of understanding, from the furthest place, until I gradually begin to understand that this is important, that this is connected to the entire reality, to the world, to all other people and  to my ego. I begin to be interested in this principle at least in an egoistic form, with the hope of somehow gaining from this. And so I have something to hold on to already; this expression becomes important in my eyes because I see this as a means for receiving pleasure, knowledge of self, an opportunity to get something new. And even if this connection is not arranged as I would like it, and passes through the reverse side, this is still a connection, and it’s very important.

A state like this is called “Lo Lishma,” and it’s a high level where I am already holding onto the principle of “And you shall love your friend as yourself,” and through it, love for the Creator, Who is to be found in the other, in the community, as is written, “I live among My own people.” Therefore, everything is arranged for me except the intention.

First, from my “healthy,” materialistic, egoistic desire, I grasp this principle strongly; then it’s possible to speak about intention. First of all, it’s necessary to build a healthy relationship, as is written: “Educate the youth according to his way.” And the more ruthless his desire to fulfill himself, the better because then you can open the way before him and explain to him upon what progress depends.

In general, all the steps leading to both purity and impurity are subject to the same dependency and are found in the same way. Only the relationship is different. About this it is written: “The Creator made this opposite to that” (Ecclesiastes 7). We use the same Kelim for both egoistic and altruistic actions; and only in intention are these actions opposing.

Before me is the system of my relationships with the group. I give myself over to it and through it to the Creator, Who is within it. I want to adhere to Him and thereby fill myself with all the Light of Infinity. This is the desired, worthwhile and imperative approach.

If I begin to confuse myself with superfluous considerations, I only reduce my desire even before it grows, so that I will have something to correct. A person corrects only what is discovered in him, and one should not be ashamed or be timid because of his egoistic spiritual aspirations. This is normal. The main thing is to be clear, that specifically in the system called a “group” I will reveal the Creator.

In general, this system includes all of reality, and even though it now seems to me to be divided, later I will see that everything is included within it. So, it’s important to see the real state, even if at this stage it’s for my own benefit.

This is the beginning of self-nullification; this puts me in front of the perpetual questions: “How can I be incorporated into the system? How do I enjoy it?” And then the Reforming Light works on me. The system is built such that the posterior side of the upper is found in the front side of the lower, and therefore, even if I think about ascent egoistically, the upper perfects my defect and gives me a remedy for my ego. After all, this ego is directed towards “And you shall love your friend as yourself.”
[105963]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/13, “The Mutual Guarantee”

Related Material:
A Question That Brings You To The Creator
The Donkey Work Of The Light
We Need A New Start

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Mutual Guarantee, Torah, World - No Comments →

Question: Besides prayer, what helps a person “cut his ego to pieces” time after time?

Answer: The question itself is incorrect. There is no other means than prayer. Prayer is the conclusion of all the right stages of examination, when it has become clear that I have nothing more upon which to rely since I am this creature, I am the result of the higher forces. The one thing that is left to me is to turn to the origin from where everything evolves into me. This is to an origin that dominates me one hundred percent.

The rules of the system are not subject to change. So if I am their derivative, what can I do? My brain only helps me to understand that I am enabled. From here it can give me practical advice: “Turn to the Creator.”

That’s it. What other possibilities can there be? Disturbances and friction between us will not help; the opposite: They will shatter the entire system, and even this is just in our eyes. Because in fact, we don’t subtract or add anything, we simply don’t carry out the only action in this entire physical world that was given to us.

So let’s stop behaving like bulls held by the horns and think about what we can truly do. Everything else, one way or another, will produce nothing. Only prayer remains.

But what must the form of the prayer be? How is this request raised about the correction of Malchut which wants to acquire the characteristic of Bina? Regarding this we need to work. If there is already a force acting within the operating system, it must be activated. For me below, a possibility like this exists: To arouse, to call for this force, to the degree of the desire of the level of Adam within me.

And conversely, if I don’t awaken it, I am not connected with it and am left on the level of a beast. In this case it acts on me directly, from above to below, without my participation.

I was given the point in the heart, so I would be able to reach the right question and raise my request. But first I need to check and prepare everything that is required, to clarify what depends on me and what doesn’t, where I am found, and how to arrange my request so that it will reach the target and be influential.

You see what leads me is a system of laws that are not subject to change, devoid of intelligence and emotion. Even if you were to stand on your head before it, this would not help. This says that I need to build my structure in the right way, this being called “existence” from below to above, within the ten Sefirot of the Returning Light. And even if I were still to scream according to my understanding of all the mechanisms of what is happening, in spite of it all, within my scream everything must be arranged correctly.

So for this, the upper Light gives me an environment prepared in the right way to develop my scream. If I relate to a group as a Kli that is ready to convey my unclear scream, built from desire, yet still without form like an infant, then this scream will acquire the right form. This will make it possible to reach the source, the force that acts within creation.

In response, this force descends on me again through the environment. Otherwise, I would not be ready to receive the Light and it would simply burn me. Specifically, the upper Light influences my connection with the friends to the degree that I am loyal to them. It influences the place where we connect, coordinated with it, since only there am I accommodated to it.

So from my side there needs to be a request that passes through the environment, making it possible for them to hear it. And from the side of the Creator the Light also arrives through the environment, accommodates itself to me, so that I will be able to accept, feel and understand it.

It follows, that the environment is a two-way mutual adapter between me and the Creator. Everything takes place within this system called a “group,” a “people,” or more correctly, one soul.
[105953]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

Related Material:
A Prayer That Reaches Heaven
Accumulating The Treasury Of Prayer Penny By Penny
A Filter On The Way To The Creator

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Prayer and Intention, Q&A - No Comments →

Rabash, Letter 40: And should you ask, “What can one do if he feels that he has a heart of stone toward his friend…”

The advice is very simple: The nature of fire is that when rubbing stones against each other, a fire starts… And only when both of them intend for a gift and not for charity, through the wearing out of the hearts, even of the strongest ones, each will bring out warmth from the walls of his heart, and the warmth will ignite the sparks of love until a clothing of love will form. Then, both of them will be covered under one blanket, meaning a single love will surround and envelop the two of them, as it is known that Dvekut [adhesion] unites two into one.

When a person begins to work in a group he doesn’t feel repulsed by others. But as soon as he feels the need to connect with the friends, as it is the means for attaining the goal, the vessel for the revelation of the Creator and through this connection one attains bestowal and adhesion, and only after that are the others called “friends” and not before; this is where the problems start. These people don’t seem like strangers anymore: Everyone takes on a certain color, a form, and becomes versatile and full of different emotions.

The friends summon in him very complex emotions and it isn’t easy to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to connect with them anymore. He doesn’t want to hug them and to sit at the same table with them for a meal or to dance together.  Different evil thoughts overcome him with regard to his relations with others and he begins to feel that it’s very difficult to connect with them.

The more he understands the need to connect, the more distant and unrealistic it seems to him. New interruptions are increasingly evoked. It’s about this kind of work that the Torah tells us first in the story of Abraham and Isaac and then about Jacob, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. Eventually, this work becomes the exile in Egypt, when a person feels such terrible distance from others that it’s impossible to ignore it and it’s impossible to connect.

The more a person tries to overcome his ego and to connect with others, the less he succeeds. He experiences “seven years of satiety” and “seven years of hunger,” with regard to the connection since the whole war against the evil inclination is only over the connection. Then there are the plagues of Egypt, the plagues of Pharaoh, that force a person to finally understand that only the upper Light can help him.

He decides that he cannot live without absolute love anymore, that will break his heart and the shards of his heart will penetrate the hearts of his friends. This is the only thing he wants and nothing but it. Thus he begins to work on the love that doesn’t immediately turn into true love, but starts from some preliminary connections, but this is at least a certain connection.
[107551]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13

Related Material:
Go For Love
Penetrating Love Through Barricades Of Hate
Asking To Love

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Egoism, Love, Torah - No Comments →

Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: But the end of the correction of the world will only be by bringing all the people in the world under His work.

All our work is to clarify the Creator’s nature and to understand what the attribute of bestowal is. We can do that only from the opposite state, from the state of receiving. So according to the Light of bestowal we feel how opposite we are from it.

Here a person feels rage and has bad feelings. Can he cope with them and overcome them? Or rather, does he close his eyes and remain in his ordinary nature as long as he doesn’t have to take part in the eternal struggle between these two forces that “rub out” his desire, layer after layer, until nothing is left of it? This is actually the problem: How can we cope with these clarifications? How can we check, study, and feel the Creator’s nature out of the created being’s nature?

A person receives an illumination from Above only if he prepares his supporters and the right environment. This includes studying, dissemination, ordinary life, work, tithing, and all the conditions that Kabbalists require. The main thing, of course is the environment, the group, the friends among whom a person clarifies his connection with the Creator. That is how the strings between the Creator’s nature and a person’s nature are woven.

On the whole we feel hatred, repulsion, and understand that this is the normal way since the truth is revealed: The created being discovers how opposite he is from the Creator’s nature. Sometimes the Creator’s nature is revealed in a way that in response, a person simply feels how bad he is towards someone or something, or towards himself.

But if the Light is revealed in all four phases, he begins to understand who he is, who the Creator is, and who the friend with whom he finds himself in different opposite states, is. Thus a person already sees a whole picture.

This is how the Light “plays” with us: Sometimes it opens up a bit more and sometimes a bit less; it isn’t coincidental, but rather according to an accurate program, according to a person’s devotion. To the extent that a person is ready to be under that “shadow,” under the “umbrella” of the teacher, the group, the study, etc., he can be advanced along the spiritual path. So, one way or the other, we always advance qualitatively, deeper into the psychology of the soul.
[107572]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 5/16/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

Related Material:
The Light Hurts Your Eyes That Are Used To The Dark
An Alliance To Mutually Draw The Surrounding Light
The Creator’s Game

Filed under: Body and Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Mutual Guarantee, Spirituality, World - No Comments →

Question: How is a decision reached in a “group of ten” (a training group of ten people): Is it according to a simple majority vote or must everyone agree?

Answer: If there is some kind of “majority,” this is no longer called a “group of ten.” A group of ten is “one man with one heart,” so what kind of “majority” can be there? A minyan is formed from ten people if they are all united in one heart, in one prayer. So how could a group of ten adopt some kind of resolution if a part doesn’t agree wholeheartedly?

You cannot show that you are a hero and agree with the decision of the friends despite your dissatisfaction. There is no coercion in spirituality! In a group of ten, a resolution can only be adopted if there is universal agreement; otherwise, the “group of ten” concept doesn’t exist. All must be as one.

In contrast, the spiritual directorate adopts a resolution with a “compelling” majority, 8 out of 10 for example. This is because it’s composed of people with different opinions regarding various problems relevant to our world and they are trying to find a solution. They don’t make decisions about spiritual work.

There are people who decide what we will eat at the meal, what the schedule will be for the day, which article we will learn in the lesson, and I don’t even ask them what kind of a decision they adopted. But the concept of a “group of ten” applies only to spiritual connection as one person.
[107626]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/13, Writings of Rabash

Related Material:
A Whole Group Of Ten
A Prayer Aimed At The Future
Equality Is A Gift From Above

Filed under: Collective Soul, Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Q&A, Spirituality, The Tens - No Comments →

Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Concerning Love of Friends-2“

The Book of Zohar – Introduction, “Mother Lends Her Clothes to Her Daughter,” Item 19, Lesson 13 

Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee,” Lesson 13

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

Question: What is a thought?

Answer: A thought is the point of connection between the created being and the Creator. It’s a special deficiency by which the created being can rise. On the one hand it’s a corporeal deficiency since a person is helpless, not knowing what to do with his life and how to manage in life. Everything begins from ordinary earthly, bodily troubles. But if a person manages to transcend these problems without leaving them but by seeing them as a means, then they provide the infrastructure from which he can rise to the Creator and thank Him for having awakened him.

If a person wants to know what the right intention is and the right attitude to everything that happens, it means that he demands a thought. He raises his corporeal point of deficiency to Bina by not asking about himself, but rather, by asking what this should lead him to in the connection to Godliness: How he can get to know the Creator by these deficiencies. Knowing the Creator is already called a thought.

Thus, this black point becomes Nukva for Hochma, which means that it’s incorporated in Bina that demands the understanding. This deficiency forces Abba ve Ima (Mother and Father) to copulate and to birth the future human being, to the next level.
[107485]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/14/13, The Book of Zohar – Introduction

Related Material:
The Two Essential Components Of A Prayer
Despair And Confidence: The Components Of A Prayer
What Is A Thought?

Filed under: Daily Kabbalah Lesson, Inner Work, Q&A, Zohar - No Comments →