Question: What can you say about our state now that nearly two weeks have gone by after the end of the convention where we revealed true life?

Answer: Our entire group, the “world Kli,” has to awaken and understand that this entire fog in which we have found ourselves after the convention is given to us on purpose and we could do nothing to resist it. Every person felt it in his own form and at different times.

Some people are still in an elevated state, even though it might not be precisely connected to the goal, in unity with others. But the sensation itself has remained. After all, there was a reason that caused the sensation, and there is the actual feeling that I feel good. And I already forgot why I feel good, but the pleasant sensation still remains.

It gradually cools down more and more, like along 4 levels, returning back to the previous state. First I was very inspired by the goal, then simply from being connected to the group, then from attaining some kind of success at the convention, and at the end I am simply left with the sensation that I still feel good, until this feeling disappears as well.

First of all, we have to value all of these phases, which are necessary for building a new desire. And the new desire has to be such that we will begin to live in the same intention, in the same sensation all the time, and this will become our constant state!

If at the convention we achieved this through an attack, a break-through: dancing, different events, and never-ending songs, then now we have to reach the same state internally, quietly. I have to feel this state introvertedly, inside of me, and that will be my convention.

Maybe we will soon get there and will hold conventions precisely in this way: without saying anything for three days, without doing anything besides inner intentions, and by getting impressed and inspired just by seeing one another. And afterwards, we won’t even have to see each other, and thus will gradually reach the true realization where we won’t need words, vision, hearing, or jumping and embraces. Let’s advance towards that.

But now we have to hold a convention inside of us, so this will become our permanent state—calmly, quietly, with a more serious, more internal attitude.
[63579]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/11, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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The Creator’s “problem” with the creature lies in the creature needing to attain Him. It is impossible to bring man to goodness if he remains in his original state. It is necessary to endow him with power, understanding, and sensitivity, and to make him equivalent to the Creator.

Similarly, the host must elevate the guest to a level equal to his own, so that he wouldn’t feel shame toward the king’s feast. To this end, the guest must obtain all the wealth of the host. And here the will of the host alone (“directive from Above”) is not enough.

So how can the guest be brought to this equivalence? Is it enough to simply shower him with presents? No. Perhaps it’s OK to help him? That’s also a problem since the host was never helped. Transitioning from “existence out of absence” to “existence out of existence” is a real problem.

This includes a great many things that we will only understand further along the path. They cannot be explained in simple terms. Ultimately we need to reveal the means that allow us to actualize our only free choice and to reach the goal.

And we know ahead of time that we’re talking about the group, about participating in its life. With the help of the group we reveal the force of bestowal, with its help we reveal the Creator’s quality. In the group we create His image and likeness, His support. This is called Shechinah—the place where He dwells (Shochen).

We must make a precise template for His reign. This will be the Temple (literally “House of Sanctity”), that is, Malchut who receives the quality of Bina. Thanks to this the Light of Hochma can clothe in her with all its forms and fulfill her.
[63480]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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We began to study Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” which appears to me as his most important introduction among all the others. Partly, it includes the excerpts from The Book of Oracles by the ARI, written by his disciple Chaim Vital. In fact, this introduction contains the entire path that we need to go through in order to reach the goal.

Although we have plenty of other materials, nothing explains the path along which we should advance and change as consistently, step by step, methodically, and deliberately. Other articles and introductions give us a general view of the wisdom of Kabbalah or view it from some particular angles.

But this introduction selects a very narrow, aimed line to show the person, either religious or secular, who starts with the question about the meaning of his life, how to achieve his ultimate realization with all the difficulties and scrutinies on this path.

This is why this introduction is unusually deep and not easy for beginners. It takes years to begin to assimilate, understand, and find oneself in it. It needs to be studied in small portions, carefully, until a person grows and might be able to reveal more. We must understand that this introduction was written by the man who stood at the head of a new era, the last stage of human development, which was to go from unconscious to conscious development.

Now we need to rise to a new level from the stage at which we could not even be called human beings but only highly developed animals acting in accordance with instincts and fully managed by the forces of nature. Something designed to be similar to the Creator begins to develop inside this creature.

We need to understand the man who was at the beginning of this process, his approach and view, and try to emulate him.
[63493]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Where can I take the force to cancel myself before the group so that everyone feels himself smaller than the others?

Answer: If the group develops correctly and passes from state to state, then everyone in the group is in his state, completing the others. As a result, the whole group advances.

Although some of the friends can feel in descent and some in ascent, and a part perceives with the mind and a part feels, but altogether they are moving forward. It requires patience. Spiritual awe involves the willingness to endure and persevere. We need to understand that I do not perform the actions myself, but I call them.
[63463]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, Writings of Rabash

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The Creator created us as material opposite to Him—the desire to enjoy, which does not feel or understand that there can be something except itself. We feel only ourselves and wish to receive and derive pleasure from everything else. Every person feels only his own desire and the fulfillment in it. These are the only two states perceived by the desire to receive: yes/no, 0/1. This is how egoism works, and this is the order of work that we observe in nature in many instances and in different cells.

However, in order for the desire to enjoy to exit itself, to rise above its quality of perceiving good and evil only within its ego, and to feel good and evil outside of itself, we need some special tool that does not exist within the egoistic desire. The egoistic desire lacks any foundation for rising above and creating something opposite of itself.

We don’t even know what this opposite means; we cannot imagine what the spiritual world is. In order to reach it, we need to perform the kind of changes in ourselves that the desire to enjoy is incapable of performing! Nonetheless, this is our duty: to reach, understand, and execute them ourselves. Otherwise we will not receive independence and become equal to the Creator as is instilled in the goal of creation.

Thus we are given a means called a group—something foreign to the egoistic desire. In regard to this strange object, the egoistic desire feels the same as in regard to the Creator, considering it nonexistent so to speak. It does not give it any independent value and simply wishes to use it. However, it understands and feels it is in connection with it.

On one hand, the egoism wishes to use the group like any outside object. On the other hand, it can use it in the opposite form: in order to achieve bestowal, a quality that is opposite to it.

Therefore, we have an intermediary form between degrees, a means of transition—like corals are between the inanimate and vegetative levels; a mythical half-plant, the “field dog” between the vegetative and animate levels; and the monkey between the animate and the human levels. And the intermediate form between man and the Creator is the group.

If a person joins a group and is able to work with it for bestowal, he will be able to rise to the degree of the Creator. One needs to try to reach this by his own effort, since becoming like the Creator means, first and foremost being independent, understanding, feeling, and demanding your changes on your own.

All of this is supplied to us by the environment. Therefore, it is written, “One who aspires to the Creator (Isra-El), the Light of correction and the Creator are one whole,” and “love for the creatures leads to love for the Creator.” We need to view our environment as a means to achieve the goal of creation. To the extent that the goal of creation is important to you, you should value the group to the same height.

This pertains not only to those in whom the point in the heart has awakened that pulls them toward the goal of creation; it pertains to all of humanity. Everyone will need to build such examples: societies or small states that will serve as examples, which everyone else will emulate while trying to draw closer.

In this manner, the whole world will advance correctly, nearing the form of the new human being, the new humanity. Consequently, we need to achieve love for the Creator—similarity to the quality of bestowal and altruistic perception. Love for the friends is a means for achieving this goal.
[63466]
From the 1st part of the  Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What does it mean to be like the Creator?

Answer: It is written: “Just as He is loving and merciful, so shalt thou be loving and merciful.” We have to gradually reveal the connection between us, which means to be like the Creator. We don’t have any other examples of how to be like Him. The Creator does not let us sense Him, He does not send us pictures, images, or documentary films of Himself. We can only imagine Him based on our lives.

Those that have attained the Creator tell us that His example in our lives and the form closest to Him is the connection with the group of friends, and the articles about the group lead us to this very special bond.
[63383]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can a person use the concept of “love of friends” so that he’ll advance toward it even when he doesn’t feel this love and connection?

Answer: If you feel that you must advance in the direction of love of friends because by doing so you are correcting your soul, then you know exactly what to do.

However, if you are in a state where you don’t feel the need to obtain this love, then you have to search for advice that will help you reveal the necessity and the importance of attaining the love of friends. This is the only thing that exists. If “love thy neighbor as thyself” is the main rule of the Torah, then besides it, there is nothing else for you to fulfill. All of your actions, in mind and heart, have to be directed at obtaining greater love and connection.

It seems like a simple thing. We don’t feel the taste for this work, and we don’t understand what’s so special about it. We want to be engaged in more serious activities, and we don’t get the principle of love of friends.

However, if I realize that the matter of creation is egoism and that the only way I can work on it is by working on the connection between myself and my friends, then our connection becomes a field. If I use it correctly, it becomes a field that’s blessed by the Creator and if not, it becomes a field that’s lurking with thieves and predatory animals.

We may feel that this isn’t serious or important and that there are far more exalted goals in this world. We are asked to love each other as if we are asked to be good children. However, there is really nothing else besides this.
[63378]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/14/2011, Writings of Rabash

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The help from outside from the friends, group, teacher, and books are the necessary conditions, which you need to view as external forces, belonging to your soul. Everything outside a person is his soul.

If you connect to these forces, ask their help so they pull you out of yourself, out of your ego, you see that in your entire soul, existing around you, there are no closer to you and more important parts than your friends. Only these external forces can pull a person out of his prison cell, from the shackles of his ego.

Now it is clear why the group and love of friends are so important. After all, they are the closest to you, special parts of your soul, given to you by the Creator so that with their help you break out from yourself.

The closer I become to them, the more I draw them towards myself and seek them: I do not do to others what is hateful to me and I love the friends like myself. This way I acquire the vessel of my soul (the property of bestowal), which belongs to me.

According to the perception of reality, everything that a person sees he sees within himself. His eyesight and feelings are divided into internal and external, but this is just his impression. And then, at the end of correction all is connected into one. But for the time being, this division is present in all the elements, and its correct use is a springboard into the spiritual world.

That is why Baal HaSulam writes in “Preface to The Book of Zohar” how thankful we should be to the Creator that He divided our reality into internal and external in such a way that we see the world around us, although it is all inside. It seems external to us, and although it is an illusion, it helps us psychologically treat it as strange, external forces and use it to exit our ego and reach bestowal.

I was given the illusion that all my reality is divided into myself and what is outside me, which is not mine. In this form, I can imagine the ego, in which I exist, and the intention to bestow, in which I do not exist yet, in the example of this imaginary reality divided into an internal and external part. And then I can work with it.
[63315]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash “According to What Is Explained About Love Thy Friend as Thyself”
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“Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 2, Lesson 2
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom,” “Influence of the Environment,” Lesson 5
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We have to prepare our desire or vessel, and this is only possible by working together, which is the most difficult thing. Personal efforts made by each person alone won’t give him any results. Only if we make efforts together to reach the common goal, this common effort provides the desire for us.

It awakens the upper one and forces him to influence our desire, to change it, to process it so it takes on the right form, and then to fill it with the quality of bestowal.

We start working together out of necessity once we despair from our own efforts to achieve anything and once we see that this turns out to be incorrect and that there is no chance to attain the goal alone.

On the way we gradually discern the true goal and the means to attain it. First every person sets completely material, egoistic goals for himself and uses the corresponding earthly means. This continues until we begin to slightly discern and elevate the notion of bestowal, love, and unity.

At the same time, we begin to see that these qualities exist outside of us, and only by behaving correctly towards one another can we discover the influencing factor among us and awaken the Light, which will come and change us.

If we don’t work together to activate the third, external source, then our work is done in the wrong direction. Only by trying to attain bestowal to one another and the right mutual relationships with our joint efforts to rise above ourselves can we attract the Light that reforms.

Then it will change our attitude to one another so that inside of this attitude we will reveal the quality of bestowal. This is called faith. Inside of it, we will then reveal love.

But before that, we have to reveal hatred, the realization of evil. Where is it? We avoid it. It is impossible to awaken it artificially, but only through persistent efforts to be together and trying to unite.
[63460]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/11, Writings of Rabash

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