Question: How do I work with the group in order to clarify correctly everything that happens with me?

Answer: First, try to connect with the friends. Leave the clarifications for now; you don’t have the right tools to clarify things. First you have to acquire the means, a spiritual vessel with which you can clarify what is happening. At the moment your attitude to life is distorted.

Today you have to build a new vessel in the group since the clarification and actually everything depends on the mutual relationship a person has with the environment.

Question: We are trying to do it in the workshops. How can we correctly clarify the questions that you are presenting?

Answer: You have to want to connect on the basis of my questions. The question itself isn’t as important as everything you are saying in the discussions. The words are necessary so that we will rise above them and constantly think about how to connect with the friends. No matter what nonsense the friend may say, I rise above it wanting to connect with him. I have to see the friends as the greatest in our generation, and on the other hand, I bestow upon them my part of the general bestowal.

The work takes place on two levels: below—hatred and coarseness, and above—love and purity. If these two things exist, it is already a certain type of vessel. If you attain such a great gap between coarseness and purity then the Light, the Creator, is revealed.

Until then, you constantly work in workshops, in connections and in studying in order to attain this gap, which for us is the goal called “Mount Sinai.”

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It says in the Torah that at the foot of Mt. Sinai the Creator said to the People of Israel: “and now if you shall listen to Me, and keep My covenant, you shall be unique people of all the nations.” There is a condition here: “I shall give you the Torah, which means the method of correction, if you understand that you have to fulfill the formula of correction, the plan of the correction.”

The Creator gives everything, the instructions and their fulfillment, but you have to know where you are headed. Here a certain commitment is required on behalf of the lower, who checks himself: Does he agree to that? And if he hasn’t reached the level of agreement yet, then the exile in Egypt can reoccur and eventually we will find ourselves once again at the foot of Mt. Sinai facing the same condition.

The agreement on behalf of the lower symbolizes the need for clarification—he needs to find out that he really wants this and nothing else. Even if he weren’t given such a strict condition, he would still accept it with his heart and soul by asking for it and wanting it. The condition he was given helps him clarify what he actually has to do.

So why doesn’t a person reach the gathering at Mt Sinai with a clear demand: “I want to be corrected! Please give me the Torah and I will keep it, in order to bring You contentment…” the point is that a person reaches this as a result of the shattering. He has a deficiency but he cannot clarify things independently and so the Light has to operate first. By the Light that is revealed, a person feels darkness—his point in the heart rises to Mt. Sinai and at the same time at the foot of the mountain he builds the “golden calf.” Indeed, how can all his other desires agree to rise to the same level in which he is ready to work in bestowal, doing the work of the priests?

A person must discover the field of his future work, all the thickness of the “mountain” from the top to the bottom. Therefore, he faces this condition. He can refuse and “die,” which means to stay in the desire to receive, to return to Egypt. The people of Israel demanded this of Moses more than once during the journey in the desert. The ego constantly calls to return to Egypt since Egypt is depicted as a fertile abundant land. Everything was in abundance there, so what was the problem?

Egypt fills the egoistic desires to their fullest. They never lacked anything there, except for one thing: to the extent that you are developed you feel darkness and sufferings, and enter the “seven years of hunger,” but it is spiritual hunger, a spiritual thirst, when there is nothing to revive your soul, but only your stomach. The desire to receive is full, but for the desire to bestow it is exile and death.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: The Torah describes Egypt as a country of abundance for our ego. Where today is this “Egypt” with all its abundance?

Answer: Indeed, the sons of Israel cried in the desert for that rich food they ate in Egypt. That land was like an overflowing cup. After all, “Nile” is a name for the Light of Hochma, which fills the egoistic desire fully.

In this manner, Egypt offered material abundance, and moreover, rewarded the sons of Israel, the people going along the spiritual path, with the Land of Goshen, the richest of its territories where one could live in prosperity. It is no coincidence that they multiplied in Egypt since egoistic desire lives in bliss and fattens there.

But the problem is that one day a “new king” rises over Egypt and suddenly I discover that egoism reigns over me, and its power is my yoke. And it is then that the sons of Israel cried out from their work: “Take away all this abundance, I don’t want it, for me, this isn’t life. What do I get from all these fortunes if I’m sinking into despair and helplessness and don’t know what I live for?” One would think, just forget about it and enjoy. But no, I cannot. And it’s not that I’m not trying: I simply can’t, and that’s that.

And this is the “new King of Egypt” that now reigns over me and shows me that my life is bad. In this way Pharaoh brings the sons of Israel closer to the Creator. They themselves cannot move a single step, but Pharaoh causes them to feel empty, to despair of life with all its fortunes. They build the cities of Pithom and Ramses; in other words, they try to succeed by working in an egoistic desire: a new car, an exotic vacation, and so on. But the result is an even greater void of emptiness. It gives nothing to the “sons of Israel” inside me.

If a few hundred years ago you gave to a common person what the poor have today, to him it would’ve seemed as wealth: You have a place to live and sleep, you have a table and a chair, you have bread and some food in the refrigerator, you’re not dying of hunger and can at least somehow feed yourself. However, the egoistic desire grew and now does not feel satisfaction from material things. Instead, it ends up in “Egypt,” in spiritual need. It’s no coincidence that in the prosperous Scandinavian countries there’s such a high rate of suicide, while in Africa, people die of starvation but they don’t try to kill themselves.

Thus, Egypt is abundance over which reigns a growing feeling of emptiness. This is exactly what is happening with our world. In essence, the world is moving towards exodus from Egypt, since it no longer needs this Pharaoh who brings misfortune, with whom it is impossible to cope, and who brings one into despair and helplessness. Seemingly, everything is in abundance, but we feel helpless in the face of modern problems. As a result, people are ready to exit Egypt, even though they don’t understand what they’re exiting and where they’re going.

In the same way, the people of Israel weren’t aware of what was happening and screamed to Moses “Where are you dragging us? What are you plotting against the Pharaoh? Why do you force us to run away through all this misfortune?” They didn’t want this escape at all, but Moses and Aaron, that is, the Cohens, arranged it for them from above.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Question: There is news from Europe about the growing economic crisis. There are talks about establishing new governing authorities. Is this “and there was a new king in Egypt” what the Torah tells us about?

Answer: The problem isn’t the politicians. It says, “The hearts of ministers and kings are in God’s hand.” The weathervane shows us the direction of the wind and only we can change its direction—the world Bnei Baruch group that works very hard experiencing descents and ascents.

Question: What would we like to happen in Europe?

Answer: We would want for them as for the whole world to recognize evil in an easy way. After seeing and reaching the recognition of evil, people will also see the direction to goodness.

Therefore we have to disseminate as widely as possible the message about the real reason for all the troubles in the world and about how to correct the situation. The world is actually in the state of the recognition of evil, and how exactly this will happen depends on our work. We are the middlemen who can direct humanity to the good way or to the bad one, or to something in between.

No one can imagine what disasters may be expected. The crisis indicates that it isn’t just a collapse but the global integral system that is clearly revealed opposite the egoistic system. The circles are opposed to the straight line, and the link between them is missing. On the whole, humanity will not be able to sustain itself—everything is in abundance, but there is no food. This is already a spiritual problem.

Now there is everything in abundance and enough for everyone, but look at what is happening in the world—disparities between people, inequality, and suicides. Every few seconds a child dies of hunger. This doesn’t happen among animals, but it does with humans.

Humanity desperately needs the revelation of evil, but in a good way. I hope that we will lead the world in this direction. Otherwise “blind fate” will send us such disasters and blows, which stem from the Lights and the vessels facing each other. When there is no “adaptor” between them, it leads to war and destruction. It is scary to even think about such events, especially if we are responsible for them.

We shouldn’t wait. We should start connecting as soon as we can.

Baal HaSulam says in the “Writings of the Future Generation“: “I have already expressed my views in 1933, I have also spoken with the leaders of the generation and my words were not accepted by them, although I screamed and warned them about the destruction of the world, it didn’t leave much of an impression. But now, after the atomic and the hydrogen bomb I think that the world will believe me, that the end of the world is very near. Israel will be the first to get hurt, as it was in the previous war. Therefore, it is better to spur the world so that they will receive the only medicine and thus shall live and exist.”

This is our work. Only we can change the news.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Preparation to the Lesson

Shamati #45, “Two Discernments in the Torah and in the Work”

The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts “Beresheet Bet (Genesis 2),” Item 55/1, Lesson 120

Talmud Eser Sefirot, Chapter 2, Part 2, Item 10, Lesson 12

“The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Lesson 11

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Question: Where does faith above reason come from to us?

Answer: Everything comes from above, and the only thing that depends on a person is how much he can rise above his sensations in order to achieve understanding, clarity, unification and connection.

This awakening can take place through suffering, which is called “in due time” (Beito). But if a person receives this awakening from the group, it is called “acceleration of time” (Ahishena).

If a person awakens through blows, then he goes through all of these states again from the very beginning. But if the awakening comes from the group, it already includes the screen and Reflected Light. That’s because by becoming included in the group, he already carried out his work, made efforts, and attracted the Reflected Light to himself.

There are four phases of HaVaYaH which a person carries out himself, and therefore the path of Light and the path of suffering are two completely opposite paths, like Direct and Reflected Light.

“Acceleration of time” is when we become included in the group, which instantly begins building the right instruments or desires in us for understanding the Creator. Whereas the natural path, “in due time” merely lays the preliminary conditions in us to begin this process. There is a huge difference between the two.

After all, by receiving suffering, I have to repeat everything over and over again in order to understand where the suffering is coming from and why. This is an extremely drawn out process. I only run from one place to another as I receive the blows, but I do not advance as this does not give me understanding. And only after many blows and suffering like this do I finally begin to see their purposefulness and causality. Then I already begin to understand that apparently, they are coming to me in order to teach me.

People often come to me asking, “Why was I the one to receive this punishment from above?” This is called the path of suffering.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/12, Shamati #121

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Question: What do I need to do in order for the Light to hear me: scream, cry?

Answer: It doesn’t matter how your request will be expressed outwardly, whether you’ll be dancing or crying, screaming or being silent. The main thing is for the request to penetrate as deep as possible into the heart. There’s only one way to check: Is your desire directed in a more and more precise way towards connection since only through connection can you come closer to the Light?

If the Light doesn’t respond to your request, it means that you don’t yet have the desire. Desire in the heart; this is a request toward the Light. If you develop the desire within you, then the Light will begin to influence and fulfill it.

It is said that every person is constantly praying; the Light affects every desire that arises in our heart. After all, the Light is at absolute rest, it is a force that fills all of creation, the informational force field in which we’re all submerged like in an ocean of water. And the moment some desire appears in me, it affects the Light.

But the fact is that there are desires that don’t go in the same direction with Him. And the Light still works on them because it affects everything—it is an immutable law, like in physics. But because these desires don’t correspond to the Light, the Light develops them in a negative form until a person discovers that he or she feels bad. Then he begins to look for a cause and finds out that he was moving in the wrong direction and he needs to change his desires. This is called the path of suffering.

Alternatively, I can proactively use the method, which explains what one must ask in order to correspond to the Light from the very beginning. To do this I join a group, which encourages me, fueling my desire. None of us wants to unite, but when we all talk about the importance of connection, then eventually everyone will want it. After all, it is a law of nature; we are impressed by our environment.

So I choose such an environment that infuses me with the right thoughts and desires, that constantly talks about the benefits of unification and the great achievements that are possible through it. And then I see that I simply cannot do without connection to others, and I begin to desire it.

If everyone works in this correct manner relative to the others and we desire to unite together at least in some way, then the Light begins to affect us and brings us closer to connection. And when it brings us to the very first, smallest connection of our desires, then it becomes revealed in them as the Light of Nefesh. This means that we have begun to live—we were born in the spiritual world. That is, we united together even if for the time being it’s through the weakest initial connection.

Then we continue on from this achieved connection already having some sensation of our state and the ongoing process. Again we begin to ask, now for an even greater connection. The Light affects us more strongly and raises us to the level of Ruach, from the still degree to a vegetative. This means that we can move on our own, we feel some movement in our connections with each other, an ability to do something ourselves. The degree of Ruach means that we weren’t simply born in the spiritual world, but we’re acting and living within it! Ruach (wind) is a vegetative degree and it means the ability to move.

And then we advance even further and reach the animate degree, Neshama (soul). At this point a person ends his cycles of reincarnation. There’s an even higher degree at the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun) when everyone will be corrected and unite together. But for now we need to ascend along the preceding degrees, and this entire advancement only happens in a group, in unity, in order to reveal the Light that will fill the correct bond between us.

In other words, if we achieve the right connection between us, then the feeling of our unity is called a sensation of Light.

Demand it in any way you can, again and again, and each time you’ll receive an impression, clarify Reshimot, and eventually it will happen. The most important thing is to continue. You need to study, participate in the entire life of the group, try to get close to everyone, and then it will come. According to what is written: “I labored and found.”

And if it hasn’t happened yet, it means that for now there’s still an insufficiency, though not of time and actions, but of your inner desire that still has to develop and become perfected. New, more advanced Reshimot still need to appear, which you will realize thanks to your work, and then it will happen.

You can scream and cry, but it won’t help. Only one thing helps: meticulously and persistently, patiently and stubbornly continuing your path.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/8/2012, Writings Of Rabash

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Some people think that the Creator can be reached through torturing oneself, making one suffer. But the Creator doesn’t need our sufferings. He doesn’t send them to us. We feel them because according to the nature of the creation, the Light and the desire are opposite to each other. And by revealing this oppositeness, a person must realize that this feeling is given only in order to rise above it. It is only a sign allowing us to feel the oppositeness and separation from the Creator.

First of all, we should be thankful for getting such a sign, and move away from this bitter feeling as soon as possible. After all, willingly or not, consciously or unconsciously, through this unpleasant sensation we blame the Creator, the source of all that is happening to us. And thus I find myself opposite to and separated from Him, and this is called a sinner.

We must strive only toward lighter feelings, toward getting closer to the Creator. A person’s search for suffering comes from pride. After all, he thinks that he is supposed to be awarded, paid, and elevated for the sufferings. This comes from a misunderstanding of the entire system of reality.

The Creator is called good that does good, and He wishes us good as well. The purpose of creation is in receiving pleasure, and the Creator created creatures in order to delight them. And if you feel something unpleasant at some moment, you should use this feeling to move forward and justify the Creator by staying in an absolutely good state.

We cannot kiss and love the stick that beats us; it is a deception and hypocrisy. If a person works correctly, he rises with the help of the environment and a new scale of values because he appreciates the quality of bestowal more and more each time. He uses every moment; when there is an opportunity to rise, he sees that he has not yet reached the full sensation of perfection; he is imprisoned in bestowal of the Creator who is absolutely good. He doesn’t calm down for a moment as his goal is to give pleasure to the father without caring about his own pleasant and unpleasant sensations. He keeps advancing by using his good and bad impressions to find out what else could be improved to reach bestowal.

So the person keeps moving, rising above the darkness and discomfort each time it occurs. After all, they point to his remoteness from and lack of adhesion with the Creator. Thus he is grateful for all of these discoveries; these are sinners that are revealed in him, which he can overcome and rise above toward adhesion with the Creator.

And then, all this revealed evil will become a blessing, a gift for him. He will welcome the darkness with gladness by preparing himself to it in a proper environment in advance. Every moment the darkness becomes revealed in his senses and mind, he will look for something that is left uncorrected.

He doesn’t look for suffering; he looks for black details in his perception in order to correct them. After all, he prepared to be corrected in advance and he doesn’t suffer in vain, which is simply silly.

Here is an entirely different calculation with respect to all the events happening to a man in the world. He sees everything as a means in order to rise above disturbances and reach merging with the Creator. It means that he is climbing the Creator’s mountain. Throughout his journey, he is wary of any unpleasant feeling lasting longer than a moment and then rises above it due to the high importance. After all, a person perceives it as a sign or a springboard for elevation, an opportunity to justify the Creator, to rise above this feeling toward bestowal. And this depends on the importance of the goal and the greatness of the Creator. Then he will highly appreciate the means, which become revealed to him in an opposite, negative form, giving him an opportunity to build himself.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/11/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Letter 8”

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The whole of reality is divided into three parts: me, the spiritual spark inside of me, not letting me be at peace and wanting to discover another reality, and the world surrounding me.

The world around me is divided into people who are close to or distant from me, inanimate nature, vegetation, and animals. Behind all of that, there stands yet another, higher force. For now, I perceive the whole of the reality as foreign, not related to me. Yet, all of this are parts of me that I do not perceive due to the separation that occurred in my consciousness and feeling.

It is as if I had been given an injection of painkiller into my arm and as a result it completely lost feeling and I don’t feel that it is mine. It could be cut off and I would not even notice, so powerful is the anesthetic.

This is how I perceive the whole of the world as if it doesn’t belong to me. And the work is to fight against this anesthetic, against this feeling.

This is intentional because if I think that this world does not belong to me, as if it has been anesthetized, I can turn from my egoism and relate to it altruistically, bestowing, as if to someone else. I can learn to love it.

I do not need to develop love towards myself; I love myself egoistically anyway. However, now I can learn to love others who are separated from me by the means of this anesthetic, this illusion of separation. After all, love is a quality of the Creator, not the quality of creation.

By the means of this separation, the Creator gives us the opportunity to receive a quality, which is not characteristic to us by nature and does not belong to us. We don’t understand what love is at all. But when I try to learn to love those who are outside of me as I do myself, meaning, to relate to my neighbor the way I do to myself, this is called love.

I am working on it against my egoism. This is a special force inside of me that constantly resists it. Thus, there is an opposition of two forces acting in two different directions. Desire attracts pleasure towards itself, but above it is a screen (the force of my resistance), which pushes this pleasure away and is ready to give it upwards.

And then, from the interaction between these two forces, I can understand what it is to truly love someone else rather than my own child, my own little dog, or my own body.

And as I develop more, my hatred towards my neighbors constantly grows, but I develop the force of love above it. It is called love only if it rises above the hatred. As it is said: “Love covers all transgressions.” Due to the collision of the two opposite qualities, the creation is able to obtain the quality of the Creator. Otherwise, it would be impossible and we would remain inside of the nature with which we were created.

However, if we want to be creations (Nivraim), meaning, independent personalities outside (Bar) of the Creator, and at the same time, to reach His qualities and the high state, then we are obliged to build such a resisting mechanism inside of us. There will always be two opposing forces functioning inside of it: the force of the desire to enjoy and the desire to bestow that we build above our egoism by ourselves, love above hatred.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/12, Writings of Rabash

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In order to understand what prayer is, we have to rely on our previous experience and imagine a state opposite to Holiness, in which a person feels that he is dead. This means that he feels envy, ambition, a desire to control, and the ordinary desires of the ego for food, sex, and family. He feels that he has become enslaved to these desires through which the rule of the upper force becomes apparent.

At the same time, he is aware that this state is opposite to bestowal, caring about others and about the Creator, which has to be above all the worries and the calculations regarding himself, his relatives, and everything that has nothing to do with spirituality.

The goal of creation is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings. If a person chooses this goal as his mission for which he is willing to work, as it is written, “as an ox to the burden and as a donkey to the load,” in order to become the link that conveys and connects, to be the smallest agent who receives no reward, in that case it means that he turns to the Creator with the right prayer. He doesn’t even know that he is the one who brings about the revelation, and what is more, he doesn’t want any reward for that and is satisfied with having been given the opportunity to work without a reward.

This attitude is revealed in us thanks to the influence of the Light in different states, and by that, we begin to respect and value the darkness more. The more contradictory the states revealed in a person, the sharper his clarifications, thoughts, and feelings become, from which he can form his request to the Creator to be saved.

Every prayer stems from despair, from having fallen under the control of egoistic thoughts about oneself, instead of thinking about the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, about the “good and benevolent.” If a person aims correctly, he attains a state in which all of his desire works only for the revelation of the Creator in the vessels of the created beings, of Malchut, Shechina (Divinity).

This is called the prayer of eighteen blessings: nine degrees of the Direct Light and nine degrees of the Returning Light. Thus, a person reaches a true prayer.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/10/12, Shamati #113

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