Question: What does a person’s ability to win the war against his inner enemies depend on?

Answer: First, we may be speaking about people who have already awoken to search for the truth and who feel the need to find the King and return to Him. The point that awakens in a person’s heart is the same point of sorrow over losing the “shield and the sword” that at a certain point were given to us as a gift by the Creator. This means that a person once had a Masach (screen) over the vessels of bestowal and the vessels of receiving on the thickness of the root, first, and second phases, and now this Masach is gone.

Only a spark of this Masach is left in a person, a feeling that once he had this power and that he may have the power, may be able to bestow and that he wants to bestow. This is the “posterior,” Nefesh of Kedusha; I don’t attain spirituality but feel that I can attain it; I have a kind of unconscious yearning for it, strong longings.

A spark is the smallest, most shattered and corrupt part of the “shield and sword” that were once given to a person by the Creator. The spark includes both the Light of Hassadim and the Light of Hochma and Masachim (screens) over them. It is like the Reshimot (spiritual genes) that include all of reality.

So if such a spark exists in a person, he can attain spirituality. He only lacks the means that helps tie his spark to the Light. This is done by the group: The group makes us feel the importance of the goal, and nothing but that is required of a person. The main thing is that a person should constantly feel the need to demand the Light that Reforms in order to identify with the Creator.

We have to get the feeling of the importance of spirituality from the group since we are in a state of concealment. The group adds the necessary conditions to our state that seem to enable us to leap above the concealment as if we feel the Creator’s greatness. It is clearly only imaginary, not real, greatness, but you approach this lie consciously, understanding very well that this is a game and that you have no other choice,

These are the conditions that we were given during the time of preparation and it is about this that it is said, “You have labored and you found!”
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Isn’t our game in the group regarding the greatness of spirituality like a toy sword about which Baal HaSulam writes in Letter #6 that we use instead of the real sword that was given to us at a certain point as gift by the Creator?

Answer: No, it isn’t a toy sword since you are connected to the truth, only the means that you have for attaining the truth is artificial. The group artificially creates an atmosphere around you of the Creator’s importance, as if it really knows that. In fact, they don’t know anything, just like Rabbi Yosi Ben Kisma who was much greater than his students and knew everything much better than they did, but they added their impression to him. Through his students, he discovered the importance of spirituality.

It depends on a person’s attitude, and we need to work on this. There are no concessions here since these are the laws of the world. We see on the screens how there is sometimes an awakening in the groups around the word and the classes are full during the lesson, and then how suddenly there are only several half-asleep students left.

We must wake up! There must be electricity in the air because of the greatness of the goal! If this doesn’t happen, then we will not have enough power to attain it.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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We are required to exert ourselves in quantity and in quality until “many pennies add up to a big account.” It is only bit by bit that we can collect our efforts since efforts are the inner resistance, the overcoming and the clarification that are opposite to our desire.

Here both the quantity and the quality are taken into account since there may be a desire but it may not be clarified enough. It isn’t the outcome that is important, but rather the efforts a person makes, which are absorbed by the general system, and it is a cumulative process. This continues until it becomes possible to return them to a person and to fully present them.

A person cannot accumulate these efforts since if he accumulated and collected them, it would weaken his search. If he knew exactly in his mind and heart, if he knew and felt what efforts he has already made, he would lose his powers to advance and would become numb.

So there is this kind of forgetfulness, and the efforts accumulate unconsciously, disappearing within. But at some point we will get them back according to the law of, “He shall vomit what he has swallowed.” At the beginning all our efforts are swallowed, as if trickling though sand without a trace. But when their sum reaches a level that matches the next level of the upper Light, there is an equivalence between the deficiency that has accumulated to a certain quantitative and a qualitative measure and the Light, then the Light and the desire are revealed in each other in a person.

Every revelation is always sudden and comes as a surprise. This whole process is called a “unique quality“.It is because it is almost totally concealed from a person. The Creator’s thought operates in its depth on the created being in order to prepare him and to help him attain the form that matches the Light.

So, as much as a person remembers and feels and as much as he forgets, as many efforts as he has already made and as many as he still has to make—all is calculated according to quantity and quality and incorporated in the general system, in the system of connection among all the souls. A person has to become an active, efficient, and useful part with regard to the system.

Of course, this is only about his feelings and revelation here, because everything is concealed and revealed only with regard to a person, not that the system itself has any deficiencies. If a person reaches the level in which he can be an active efficient component consciously, then he is rewarded with revelation.

So we should understand that we mustn’t delve into and try to calculate what seems to us as obstacles, forgetfulness, weakness, and efforts that are lost and that leave no traces, forcing us to start anew each time. We must not make any calculations here since we don’t understand to what extent everything is measured and arranged accurately every step of the way. We only have to work on hastening time by constantly evoking ourselves as much as we can.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: How can it be that a person becomes an active part in the system if it says that the Light does everything?

Answer: The system already exists in perfection and splendor in a state called the world of Ein Sof (Infinity). All the shattering and the concealments, and all the restrictions and the conditions, are relevant only with regard to the created being in order to allow him to gradually attain the whole system.

So we have to start from the state that is most distant from this wholeness. A person actually goes through part of the process unconsciously, in many previous incarnations. We did not begin our correction consciously straight from the “Big Bang“, from the first particle of matter that was created by the spark of the Light billions of years ago.

And it wasn’t yesterday that we climbed down from the trees and turned from apes into human beings. It is a very long process that goes through many changes from one generation to another. Eventually, we have arrived at the life we are living now in which we have to complete this work and clarify things! The most important thing now is the recognition both in our mind and in our feelings.

So everything that happens in this world on the physical, corporeal level has to receive only what is necessary for its existence in order to provide the animal body with what it needs, but all our development has to be on the human level. This is how we should arrange our life and this is how we should focus our attention so as not to deal with the animal level more than it is necessary for its existence.

We should focus all our attention on the speaking level by looking for the human being in it. How can I separate it from the animal to take it out of this confusion and to deal specifically with it?

Here, everything depends on the society, of course. If a person is cut off from the environment, then there is no way that he can advance. It is because he has to create his human image, by cooperating with all of humanity or at least with the group he was brought to. If he perceives the group and the connection with it as absolutely essential, then by this connection he builds his human image.

The main thing is to hasten time. If the Creator has already brought a person to the good fate and told him, “Take it,” then from now on everything depends on you, and all you have to do is to find out exactly what you have to take and how to arrange everything.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Preparation to the Lesson

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Igrot,” Letter 47

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpt, Parashat “Shlah Leha,” Item 210, Lesson 19

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Volume 3, Part 9, Question 147, Lesson 30

“A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Kabbalists tell us that the created being has a goal and this goal is to adhere with the upper force. In any case, I am obliged to adhere to it whether I wish it or not. There are two ways to realize this: the path of good and the path of suffering. As a rule, we advance along the middle path because we are unable to choose just the good and most of the time we slide to the negative, so we try to keep at least in the middle.

However, I don’t know to where or towards whom I am heading. It’s true that I am driven by an internal impulse, but I have no idea how it works or where it drives me. In fact, I don’t know anything; everything is hidden.

What happens is that an unknown desire burns inside, and I can’t put it out. “Life is not sweet; everything is bad; I need something else…” An incomprehensible urge restricts my chest, and I can’t find a place for myself, I don’t know how to forget or how to disconnect from this life.

These distressed people come to the wisdom of Kabbalah. But as soon as I come to it, as they say, the Creator “puts my hand on the good fate.” In other words, it’s not my decision; He has chosen it for me. The game is sold. He set up my entire life and seemingly tells me, “You see, I have arranged everything for you. Here is a group—the best place for you. Here are friends—the best people for you. And you just have to strengthen your relationship with them.”

It’s not me who decides where to stay or what to do. My only choice is to strengthen. This framework also includes my relationships with my family and the external conditions but only in order to focus me on my connection with the group. I have to provide myself with basic material needs and devote the rest to the Creator, to adhering to Him. Now I have to relate to the group in the appropriate way; the family, children, work, and daily life are only necessities, and the rest is among the friends. “I have already chosen the best for you,” says the Creator, “Just take it and carry out.”

Another thing is that it’s impossible to carry out. Why has the Creator made it all in this way? It’s in order that we don’t forget about Him. Only by attracting Him, putting Him between us, can we unite. Each one with the group and we together in the group will be able to make some movements towards correction, unity, the goal, even if the tiniest steps, only if the Creator is our partner. This is the only way to move forward, provided that we remind each other about this. After all, no one can recall this by oneself. That is part of the changes that a person must go through. And it is in his power to organize everything properly.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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The principle is very simple: Everything depends on how important our desire to receive, our nature, sees something. If I see an important person I have a desire to get close to him, and I appreciate him according to how important he is.

Then I look at that important person without taking my eyes off of him, just like a mother who cannot take her eyes off her baby since he is the most important thing for her. I will follow the important person and try to appreciate and even love whatever he likes, and gradually I will change my tastes in order to resemble him. To get close to him means to love what he loves, and to behave as he does. This is the law of bestowal and love, the law of importance.

Therefore, the first condition is “make yourself a Rav,” by seeing that the Creator is important to us; the goal of His creation becomes important for us, the law of equivalence of form, which we should attain. This is what we should work on.

The Creator is concealed so that we will not chase Him egoistically like we chase an important person in our world because being close to him promises me a real gain. I have to yearn to chase the Creator so that it will only be beneficial for my vessels of bestowal, so that there will not be any self-benefit in my bestowal and my connection with Him; that it should be only for Him, for being equal to Him and not for the filling of my ego.

It is because by the filling of my ego, I cut myself off from the Creator and only want to receive from Him. In order to allow me to chase the Creator so that I can adhere to Him by changing my attributes to His attributes, the Creator is concealed. We, however, have to change ourselves by the help of the society.

To the extent that the environment depicts and presents the Creator’s greatness to me, I can think about the changes in me, about changing my attributes to His attributes. Then by “make yourself a Rav,” which means by seeing that the Creator is important, I attain “buy yourself a friend” and connect to Him by resembling His attributes.

This is the whole process that the sages expressed in the short message of “make yourself a Rav and buy yourself a friend!” If we don’t see the Creator as great and important, we will not be able to get close to Him and to annul ourselves.

So there aren’t people who cannot succeed because they have a weak character or don’t have the brains, the sensitivity, or power to do so. The only explanation for our failures is the lack of feeling the importance of the goal, which we can always buy from the environment.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/13

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Question: What kind of work should we do with regard to analysis and acceleration of time?

Answer: To become like the Light means to reach the degree of bestowal. At first it’s necessary to separate yourself from the still, vegetative, and animate levels, and to understand the human degree, the degree of Adam, the one “similar” (Domeh) to the Light, bestowal. It’s necessary to figure out how I gather pieces of bestowal or grow them within through the correction of my relationship with my environment and the Creator.

This work is done every time above my desire, which naturally is inside me on the animate level. And I build the human degree, the form of bestowal, above it. The better the person begins to distinguish between these two notions, the greater the difference he begins to feel between the animal form within him and the human form, which is above this animal. All our work takes place on the borderline between the first and the second form, with the purpose of increasing the human form within us.

It’s not easy to separate these two forms within us in such a way that we perceive them in a completely equal way, as an inseparable pair: a rider, riding on horseback. Only then will we attain the understanding of what an animal and a human are. This is the main work of a beginner who needs to figure out how much attention he can dedicate to his animal and how much he must dedicate to his human in order to separate them and put each one in its place, so the one would control the other.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: It is very difficult for creative people to realize themselves when working at an enterprise because its structure requires certain boundaries, and creative people need freedom.

Answer: What freedom does a creative person have? Is he not limited by his creativity? He must understand what he is doing, after all.

This is not just a free artist with wealthy relatives who does whatever he wants. And even in this state, he will not be able to create anything. Or he must be completely poor, like Modigliani who barely made ends meet, or something anyway needs to be pressuring him, otherwise he will not produce. But being “suspended in midair” is not creativity. All the great people have worked in difficult circumstances.

For example, Slava Zaitsev, a famous designer, suffered for many years because he was not being recognized or accepted, and he was badly treated in Russian, until he became known abroad.

Thus, freedom without boundaries is not a creative approach. I do not believe in things like: “Right now we’ll take our time, and we might show you the results in six month or a year from now.” One should not do business with people like this!
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From the Virtual Lesson 1/27/13

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Question: What can we do if the load of working in the group and the load of working in the general Bnei Baruch factory don’t allow a person to deal with both? What should be given preference? Is it the obligations in the group or the responsibilities in the organization?

Answer: It is a problem I hear about everywhere, both in the groups in Israel and abroad. You have to decide what the priority is.

If we don’t deal with dissemination, then we will not be given anything from Above either, since we exist in GE like vessels that should conduct the Light from Above downwards to the nations of the world, and this is why we were given a spiritual awakening.

We must understand that we have to give below as much as we want to receive from Above in order to be the conductor of the Light and not the resistor. So you have to decide to what extent you can do that.

There are people who work in the group for the friends in the maintenance of the building, etc. There are people who deal more in publication, in production, in working in the society or in the global group, but on the whole the ratio should be that a person should aspire to give as much as he receives.
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From the Virtual Lesson 1/27/13

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