If I feel indifference toward the friends and nothing disturbs me, it is a sign that I haven’t begun to discover hate and certainly not love. However, if I already feel repelled by them, it is the influence of the upper light that is shining on me to show me my evil, my ego.

Not everyone is ready for this kind of work: It is possible that a person may connect with others and feel good; it’s pleasant, it’s interesting to go to the desert with everyone with all that hugging, and he doesn’t feel any hate. Hate can only be revealed by the Light that reforms.

Does it surprise you that this is the way It reforms you? Yes, this is the way to Him.

It is important not to despair that you have discovered hate that repels you. Don’t shout, “Where is my advancement? What kind of reward is this for my efforts?”

If you continue despite everything, if you want to connect with the friends because there is no other choice and Kabbalists advise you to do so, if you annul yourself, then you will understand that it is possible to reach bestowal and the revelation of the Creator only through connection. But you see that by yourself, you cannot connect and then you realize that connection is only possible with the help of the Surrounding Light.

The hatred towards the friends also comes from the Light, but this happens without our request. It is the revelation of evil. In order to correct it, a person must relate to the upper force purposefully and ask It to be revealed so that we will have the opportunity to connect with others.

There are many ascents and descents, disappointments, and a long period of helplessness on this path when you can’t annul yourself or turn either way. We are purposefully being exhausted this way until eventually the Light from Above comes to help us, and we begin to appreciate the friends. Here too you should check whether you appreciate them for no reason or whether you appreciate them because you appreciate the Creator.

Israel, the Torah, and the Creator should always be joined into one, and then this aims you in the right direction. Israel (you) is full of hate; the Torah (the upper Light) reforms you, helping you build the love on top of the hate. And then in the middle line, when you correctly connect the right and the left, you reveal the Creator and it all merges together into one.

This is the focus of our work.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, Writings of Rabash

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At certain moments we are able to feel a yearning for bestowal, for giving, for closeness, for embracing, for the unity of the hearts, but the next moment we cool down. This is because we are not corrected, and our impression comes from the ego.

The ego agrees to give in for a moment and adhere to another egoistically to feel the connection. Then, I feel proud that I managed to connect, and this is what holds me. However, a minute later a new Reshimo (reminiscence) cools down my enthusiasm.

Sometimes, a person is ready to jump off the tenth floor. For a moment, he is ready to do anything due to the despair he feels in his broken heart, but the next second he already regrets it and begins to think logically. It happens this way because it stems from the one and only egoistic desire a person has.

How can we be in the corrected state for a longer period of time, both in mind and heart, and not regret the decision we took, even though it is higher than us and against our nature? How can we consciously throw ourselves as if we were stepping out of the tenth floor into open air, and, while hanging in the air, know what is happening to us, be ready for it and want it to happen?

This isn’t a rash, crazy step coming from the despair of a broken heart, but from a clear, rational decision. This can only be done if you have another force, the force of bestowal, acting against the force of receiving. The Light that influences a person enables him to hold himself this way and to reach an informed decision.

A spiritual action never takes place according to the heart’s desire alone; it should be deliberate, calculated in both the heart and the mind. The more the upper Light operates and shines upon a person, the more he is able to make the right decision, giving his own life, his soul, and, at the same time, sticking to the decision for a long time, until he completes that level and rises to the next level.

With regard to the present level, he will never change his decision. When the next level comes and a desire grows, he will fall and rise again to the next state. The sign for such advancement is a constant feeling of happiness.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/29/12, Writings of Rabash

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We want to prepare for a congress in the Arava desert, if it will take place. After all, we can’t designate dates for congresses according to the calendar, but only according to our readiness. Thus, every day during this month before the congress, we must assess ourselves: Are we really ready to go and attack?

Let’s use a tailor as an example. He receives orders from people, and sews pants, shirts and hats for them. This is the way he earns a living, and it is enough for his sustenance. Is it worthwhile for him to advertise himself, or not? If he is a good tailor and can show off his work, it is worthwhile to promote himself.

However, if he doesn’t prepare the right advertising slogans, doesn’t know exactly how to sell himself, and isn’t confident of success, then it’s preferable for him just to keep quiet and remain as is. After all, if he advertises himself knowing that his work isn’t very good, then he won’t even earn the same living that he earned before.

Therefore we need to think hard before we are going to take a leap, to grow spiritually: Do we have the means in hand in order to rise, or not; do we have the deficiency, the need, the readiness? Are we equipped to go out to attack?
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/30/12, The Zohar

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Question: Many people in Israel support our message, so why doesn’t the whole country hear us?

Answer: The message cannot be heard in a vacuum. There must be “air,” the attention of the hearts, through which the sound waves are transmitted. Otherwise, you’re just silently opening your mouth and no sound comes out. The desire that can pick up your words and carry them to a distance isn’t ready yet. This is the whole problem.

So what can we do so that this desire will appear? We can distribute our materials in the streets and at the events we hold, which is what we do, but this is not enough. It isn’t by chance that Kabbalists kept quiet until our time, until the egoistic desire started taking on the form of the general crisis. It wasn’t even a prohibition, but simply an inability to communicate something to the people.

Even if the wisdom of Kabbalah were opened before them, they wouldn’t have seen anything. Using the example of current events, we have been talking about the problem of unemployment for a long time, but only now it is beginning to emerge. Everything is delayed; we are always ahead of things.

We can only make efforts to do our best in dissemination, making sure that it doesn’t turn into “unripe fruit.” Everything must happen all in its time, so that people will understand our ideas correctly. Otherwise they will have the impression that it is just empty talk.

Therefore we should wait a while. We don’t want them to suffer, of course, but still the serious problems must reach the headlines, so that we can come out with our ideas. People need to hear from us what they are ready to hear.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Writings of Rabash “Love of Friends”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “A Prayer for the Poor,” (Start with: “Yet, she still has some correction”), Item 187, Lesson 53
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Preface to the Book of Zohar, Item 26, Lesson 14
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Question: When we start talking about current global problems during the lesson, many of our friends take it negatively feeling that we are “missing” part of the lesson. I feel that this attitude should be changed. Without current affairs we have no right to exist. If we are not relevant people won’t hear us out.

Answer: This is also true. Baal HaSulam wrote about the Jerusalem Kabbalists who studied Kabbalah like mathematics and didn’t realize that it’s about the connection among us, about how to correct the broken vessel. Today we discover the shattering of the common soul of Adam HaRishon (First Man), and so the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed to us in order to correct the shattering.

If we don’t examine the current events from this perspective, then why should we study the wisdom of Kabbalah? Clearly we study only for this reason. Missing the lesson means that I come out of the lesson and throughout the whole day I have nothing to hang on to so that my life won’t go by aimlessly. If my wisdom isn’t connected to real “substance,” it disappears. Even if I feel important, that I have acquired something, and that I understand something, it’s only an egoistic filling, nothing more.

Therefore, if someone thinks that we are talking about current problems just to pass the time, then he shouldn’t come here. After all, he is here thanks to the relevance of these current affairs. Only because of this was each of us brought here so that he would contribute to the correction of the world. But if a person sets himself another goal, he can leave. We don’t need him.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Suppose the program to educate the unemployed is accepted. How long will it take until we begin to see changes in our country?

Answer: A couple of weeks. Of course, it depends upon the number of people who will study, but the changes will be rapid. Imagine how many hours a day a person will take part in the integral education course. This in itself will evoke great changes in him. At the same time he will be under the strong influence of the environment: millions of people who study daily from their homes, in community centers, in schools in the afternoon…this will be their main occupation, apart from the necessary part time job.

It would be enough if this lasts for several days in order for a great force to be revealed. If you hold such a day all over the country, you will immediately see the changes, and you will see how the people cut themselves off from the old life style and connect to the new one.

The changes will take place at once and in every area of our life: in crime, drugs, litter in the streets, etc. Think of how much can be saved just on municipal services alone. Even the number of sick people will diminish. We will undoubtedly feel this in everything.

Moreover, the entire economy will change too. Will we, the people, keep on buying goods in such monstrous quantities? Will we continue to subsidize the producers and the middlemen that inflate the prices? Will we pay five dollars for cottage cheese that hardly costs one dollar? We will sift out all the redundant things and leave only the necessary ones.

So you may ask: “And what about the taxes? Where will we get the money for social security and for defense?” You will see that there are the means for that. It’s wrong to build an economy on an endless cycle of enormous sums of money, from which the government takes a percentage of for itself. Just look at this ridiculous structure that produces not only goods but papers too.

The economy will be different. You need to provide security? Please, take the people and act. Everyone gets exactly as much as they need to lead a normal life. And all the rest goes to supply the needs of different systems, not financially but rather in the framework of sensible necessities.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/1/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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How can I determine whether I advance towards the Creator with the intention of in order to bestow or for some other self-benefit? There are many people who are ready to “die as martyrs,” but how can you tell whether it is the greatest egoism or whether it is truly bestowal and self-sacrifice?

How can I check myself, daily, every moment, whether I am desiring to bestow upon the friends, life, myself, and the Creator or in order to somehow profit from them?

How can I test this? After all, without such examination, I don’t know where I am. It could be that I have been going along for twenty years but I actually went in the opposite direction from the goal: instead of bestowal to receiving. And I could complain that I haven’t reached revelation yet and that I am now powerless. But it could be that I went backward, as it is written, “It is better to sit and do nothing,” than to go in the wrong direction.

The examination is very sharp and simple: I have to yearn for what I hate: It is very simple. If I hate someone and want to feel bestowal towards him, then I have to love him without annulling my hate.

But if I don’t feel hate towards someone, I cannot check in what kind of a relationship we are: whether it is in order to receive or in order to bestow. If I build a relationship with someone, and I begin to think less of him than before, it is a good sign. It is a sign that I discover my ego. And I decide that I continue to reinforce our connection and turn the one I hate in to a loved friend, above my power, against my will, when I oblige myself to love him.

If I don’t succeed in that, I ask for it during the lesson and do all kinds of tricks in order to love him. This is because it is clear to me that the love must ride on top of the previous hate and that these two feelings have to coexist, as the right and left lines. I connect them and build the middle line without annulling either of them: not the right one and not the left one, as it written: “Love covers all sins.”

This means that the sins are necessary, so that above them there will be love. Then I look at our relationship differently. Hate is revealed? Never mind! It is a sign that now love will be revealed!

So I try to feel it and see that it doesn’t work out. I go through ascents and descents and different problems, and it is all in order to need help from Above. Then I cry out to the Creator: “Help!” The Creator is the middle line, Keter, from which the two lines come to me: the right line and the left line. If I am below, in the middle line (in the Sefira of Da’at), I ask and receive help from Him.

This means that these two opposing forces: the bestowal and the receiving, which come from Him, are needed only in order to stabilize me in accordance with Him and to focus me on Him. Thanks to them I feel and understand what Keter is. Actually they are what stabilize my reality.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: If I like to hear The Zohar read in Hebrew, should I do that or should I listen to the translation?

Answer: Yes, and no. If it helps a person understand Hebrew better, then it is worthwhile. However, if you stay on the same level, then no, because eventually, while reading The Zohar we advance through the PARDES in the reverse order. I go through the different stories from the secret (Sod) to the allegoric literature (Drush) then to the hint (Remez) and to the literal meaning (Pshat).

At first I really don’t understand what it is about. Then in Drush, I begin to understand that it is about certain attributes in the general vessel, which is broken and which must be revealed in this way. The style that is used to tell this is Drush and Remez, and in the meantime I don’t distinguish between them. Afterward I begin to advance and then instead of Drush and Remez, I begin to see the network of connections among us more clearly.

In the article “The Four Worlds,” Baal HaSulam writes what the four worlds are: Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, and Atzilut: the revelation of matter, the revelation of the action, and the revelation of the operator.

We advance in reading The Book of Zohar until we begin to see that it is only about the connection among us: to what extent it reaches correction thanks to the revelation of the Creator in it, where the deficiency that comes from us is, where the correction is, and how they operate together like oncoming waves that come and go. And so time after time, the network among us is gradually revealed, in all its different manners.

All this refers only about the mutual connection between us, which is built, expanded, and revealed thanks to the revelation of the power of bestowal, the Creator. It fills the void between us and thus, He is revealed. Our bestowal and His revelation appear as one whole.

Therefore, before I come to look at this picture, I feel the difficulties in discovering it that start from the Sod, which is the beginning of the PARDES.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, The Zohar

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The purpose of creation is to reach adhesion with the Creator. We discover adhesion with the Creator with the help of the attribute of love. This is because the Creator reveals to the created being the attribute and the attitude called love, which are expressed in the form of the good and the benevolent.

It is the same in our world, when we love someone, we want to do good to them. It is an external sign of love. But if a person lacks the desire to do good, it means that he doesn’t love, but rather he calculates what is more advantageous for him: He gives in order to receive.

Love is above all the calculations. First there is love and then, as a result, comes the giving. Love in itself is what obliges a person to give because one is fulfilled from that. When I love and I cannot give, I suffer. This is because love lives by our feeling good when we give to the people we love.

So why is there a Mitzva that we reach the love of the Creator? This is unclear for two reasons. On one hand, how should I want this? On the other hand, why is this an obligation? Can someone be obliged to love? Why does this idea take on the form of a commandment, of the most important Mitzva? Even in our life we see that in this world you can oblige a person to do anything except to love. If I am obliged, it isn’t love anymore.

This brings up many questions, which we shall leave for philosophers and instead will talk about it looking at the system. The system of creation was created by the upper Light, which comes to us from the source of love, from the Creator’s love to the created being. This love is inherently absolute. In order to fulfill it, the upper Light spreads from the source in the form of the good and the benevolent and stabilizes the created being so that all the processes will be able to fully take place in him. This is done only from the love of the Creator to the created being.

First we have to understand that everything that happens to us, the worst and most terrible things, from which humanity has suffered throughout its corporeal history, and also on the levels of the spiritual worlds—all stemmed from the Creator’s absolute love for us. We have to reach the same attitude on our part.

This is possible because the Light that develops us comes from exactly the same source. It descends through the Masachim (screens), the filters, and begins to influence our smallest desire to receive, the tiny grain of egoism, the low, the murky, and the dead. Gradually the Light influences our matter on higher levels of the ladder of development and evokes this grain to start growing. The desire goes through the phases of the inanimate, vegetative, and animate, to the level of speaking in which the same cycle takes place, and so on.

All this comes from love. Then, at the end of the process, whether we like it or not, love will reside among us. But it works in two lines: the deficiency and the filling. This is how we advance.

First the Creator has to gradually create deficiencies in us, desires, from top down, together with the fulfillments on every level and in every state. The difference between these levels is qualitative: We grow wiser, acquire greater understanding and feeling, and turn from single cells in a body into human beings. Then with the point in the heart, we exit into the spiritual levels.

All this stems from the Creator’s love and so there is no doubt that we will return to it. So why are we commanded to do that? Why should there be a demand for a predetermined result? The commandment is that we shouldn’t stop on the way, and should constantly move forward. If we push ourselves forward willingly we will undoubtedly reach love.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/31/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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