We need the influence of the Light that Reforms to make of us one desire, one vessel. How can we summon this Light to shine on us? In order to do that, Kabbalists have described its actions. It makes no difference if these actions are directly connected to us. What’s important is that we awaken the Light. By our intentions, we awaken it, the “One, Unique, and Unified” that exists.

When I read The Book of Zohar, I don’t feel anything. What is described there is concealed from me. To imagine different images is to create idols. I know only one thing: The “One,” the concept that I yearn for, corrects the shattered vessels, meaning the desires that are separated by egoism. I want it to correct the separation. This is what I think about, yearn for, and demand.

I don’t worry about understanding The Zohar because as it is written, “it is not the wise one who learns.” This is called the “studying of the Torah.” After all, the Torah, the method of correction (as it is written, “I created the evil inclination, and I created the Torah as a spice”), is not attained by the mind. I correct my egoism and connect with others by the power of the “One.” In this collection of desires, I discover the new integral reality, the upper world.

We know this from the experience that each of us has after years of studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. The mind doesn’t help in any way. There is some internal change, and then I begin to understand, to feel, and to connect the different notions better.

So, in order to summon the influence of the One who will unite me with all of reality, I simply have to read about His actions. However, I aim myself toward the outcome of the reading, the influence of the Light that Reforms: It brings me back to the state of the One from whom it comes. This is what is important.

I add the group to this. I add myself, the entire world, and everything that I perceive in my reality. Everything has to connect to the notion of the “One, Unique, and Unified.”
[61832]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/2011, The Zohar

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Who wants to rise to the world of Atzilut? You scream: “I do!” But first, you have to show what and how strongly you really do want to. Let’s check whether you are capable or not. There is the Light of Hochma (Wisdom) in the world of Atzilut. What if you would want to steal it again just like the first man (Adam Ha Rishon) did?

Thus there are many filters that check and determine our intentions. We see how difficult it is for us to advance and enter the world of Atzilut. We stand at the opening in the wall and knock on the gate, but it doesn’t open! We knock and scream: “Malchut of the world of Atzilut, why don’t you open the gate for me?” And it answers: “You are not a match for me.” You reply: “But why?!”

It answers, “You think only about yourself, and I want you to think about me. Do you look after me, do you care about doing good for me and filling me? What presents will you bring to me, meaning what will you do for the sake of bestowal? Do you have such an intention? You have not a single thought about me, you think only about yourself. You want to come to me, to a rich bride, in order to steal everything I have and run away back to your world, to your boyfriends and girlfriends. How can I let you enter?”

We find ourselves in such a position…. Thus different systems help us to correct, clean, raise, and free ourselves from all thoughts and desires to steal so as to want to bestow and sacrifice ourselves. With their help, we check ourselves and advance. And Malchut checks us as well in order to finally let us enter as witnesses and guests at its wedding.
[61507]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, TES

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Writings of Rabash “The Need for Love of Friends”
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Our attitude to the neighbor, to the environment in the world where we were born, which we feel inside of our egoism, is called the preparation period. When we go from love for the environment or love for friends to love for the Creator, this is already the time of the real work, when we acquire the qualities of bestowal.

As a result of acquiring these altruistic qualities and going through the degree of bestowal for the sake of bestowal, we finally attain love. But since this path leads to the attainment of love for the Creator, that is how the entire path is called.

And even though today we are working in our realm, in our world, with egoistic qualities, this is still considered work on love for friends, for the neighbor, even though all of it is very far from real love.

Love for the Creator, love for the creatures, and love for friends are the same thing because it is directly opposite to love for oneself. That is why it requires so many qualitative changes inside of a person. But the value of love for friends is very high because it allows us to acquire additional desires and sensations, to reveal the true reality we are in, meaning the Creator.

To the extent that a person values the Creator and the final goal, that is how important he considers the means leading to it, such as the exercises in the group, with the friends, and the studies because without these means he could never attain the goal.

On one hand, this entire world is imaginary and there is no one around me: not the still or the vegetative levels, nor animals or people. All of these are my own desires, which divided into these parts and therefore present the Upper Light to me in this way.

This is also how I must treat the group – as if nothing exists besides me. And everyone I feel around me: the environment, the group, the teacher, and even the Creator, are inside of me, in my sensation. I received this illusion that everything is outside so I could learn what the sensation of the neighbor means: so I could feel him, have relationships with him, and attain bestowal and love.

If a person perceives all of reality this way, then he does not err. Clearly, he still has to discern new details all the time and supplement the common picture with them, but he is already on the right path.
[62050]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/11, Writings of Rabash

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Our spiritual vessel lacks capacity because we are afraid of the two opposite states: hatred and love. We avoid hatred and don’t want to feel it. The defense mechanism of the body doesn’t even allow us to truly hate.

And in general, we are afraid of hatred. Indeed, it is written that we need to love the friends, and yet we suddenly discover that we hate them. We don’t even want to think about it! Therefore, we block these questions that arise within us.

And love, for what do we need it? I don’t feel the need to love them. I can get along without it. I don’t let myself reach these two extreme emotions. And it’s possible to reach them only after investing much effort.

If I don’t invest in a child, he is growing up by himself somewhere in the yard, and I think to myself: “Well, what will be will be.” And then afterwards, when they put him in jail, I mutter to myself: “Well, what can be done?”

But if I invest efforts with him, from day to day, placing demands in front of him and worrying from the bottom of my heart about everything that happens to him, then I am filled with both love and hate. They both create the capacity in me for great worries. Everything depends upon my investment.

So what should be done if we want to arrive at the approaching convention with a big and expanding vessel? We once went on an excursion to the mountains in the north of the country, and it was almost impossible to climb the mountain without each other’s help. This is a very good exercise. Even games like these that seem “childish” help us to feel the togetherness between us. But now, before the convention, each one must search for how to invest his strengths as much as possible in what the group is doing.
[61510]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, TES

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Question: I know that the effectiveness of the studies depends entirely upon the connection between the friends during the lesson. So why do I discover within me only the resistance?

Answer: Would you like for there to be no resistance? We need to understand that all of our development occurs thanks to the forces that stop us. All of our forward movement is carried out with the help of those same disturbances that constantly appear to us. These are the forces that confuse us, make us criticize others and curse the Creator, the group, and the teacher, everything!

And I need, on the contrary, to appreciate and raise it all upward, to the height of all those who belong to my spiritual advancement. I need to artificially do it since after all, my natural way is my ego. If I want to act naturally, I will remain an animal since that is my nature.

The Creator created us like that, and He doesn’t hide it. It’s exactly what He says, directly: “I created the evil inclination.” He’s not embarrassed to say that He created us like animals. But He gave us the opportunity to make ourselves into human beings instead, and we must do this.

If I constantly forget, don’t understand, don’t feel, am confused, and don’t grasp what I am learning, then I finally need to understand that this is sent to me as help. Everything that happens to me at each moment: with health, family, at work, on the street, in the group, during studies, with my inner clarifications, and with my thoughts, all the burdens and confusion, everything is given to me only so that I will arrange all this data correctly on a value scale. I need to clarify what is higher and lower, what can or cannot help me, to cut it from me, and to not pay attention to it now.

This means that from all of these disturbances, I build a spiritual structure, a spiritual Partzuf. From all of my desires, thoughts, and relations, from all the influences on me, I must create a model of myself that shows me who I want to be now, how to relate to everything, what is important for me and what is less, and what can help me or is completely useless.
[61516]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, TES

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Writings of Rabash “Concerning Love of Friends”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Brightness of the Firmament,” Item 10, Lesson 6
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Right now we are on the threshold of great unification: the December convention. To prepare for it, we need to constantly worry about our connection, about revelation of a common desire between us. To the extent that this desire will truly be common, we will be able to feel the spiritual force in it. After all, unanimity of desires creates the condition, the so-called “vessel,” the Reflected Light, the screen, because we connect together against our ego.

The more egoistic we are in the relationships between us, the more each one puts pressure on himself in spite of his ego and requests for the Light to influence him and help him connect with others, the stronger the screen and the greater the force of overcoming is that we activate to rise above the ego that separates us and pushes us apart from each other.

This common force of overcoming, referred to as the force of mutual guarantee, becomes our common force. The Creator created the forces of rejection between us purposefully, as it is written: “I created the evil inclination,” and we feel how we repulse each other. But we try to overcome these forces of rejection through our common actions and our study so as to attract the Light that Reforms, as we wish to connect despite the forces that constantly push us away from each other like little demons between us. We must prevail over these evil forces and connect.

To the extent that we try to be together as hard as we can so as to eliminate all the differences between our desires, thoughts, and actions and to truly be like one man with one heart, to that extent we reveal that only we can help each other acquire this common aspiration for connection, as it is written: “Man will help his neighbor.”

Then in this common aspiration we discover that we are not able to connect. But we already uncover our common desire to unite, instead of individual separate desires to connect with others. This common desire is called the prayer of many, a common prayer. And then our request for the Light, the Creator, rises specifically out of this common prayer. And help from Above comes only in response to these mutual efforts, which means that it comes from within, from unity above our degree. This is called MAD, the correcting Light that creates a connection between us despite the forces of rejection.

These rejecting forces are called “Aviut” (the thickness of desire), and the forces of connection are called the “screen.” These two forces together, which we form to bestow to a higher degree, the Creator, are called the Reflected Light since we wish to be exactly like the Light that has corrected us, that is, we wish to bestow. And then we realize the condition under which the Creator, the Giver, becomes revealed in us.

We complete all these stages only with the help of the Light that Reforms. This Light may shine on us even when we do not ask anything of it, like an infant who does not know why he is screaming, but he is taken care of. Alternatively, we can begin to distinguish what exactly it is that we need, and then our prayer becomes more directed and thought over. Or we really consciously raise our request in the right direction, knowing clearly that we demand the ability to bestow to the upper degree.

But everything is done by the Light that Reforms. To tell you the truth, what could be better than constantly reading The Zohar and doing all these actions…This is the ideal state. But reality is such that man must go to work, go about his daily business, and then come for a few hours and raise his prayer. At first he collects different problems, desires, aspirations, and hopes within him, and afterwards he comes to The Zohar. And then we connect together and raise our common prayer through studying together.
[61527]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, The Zohar

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Question: If our entire purpose is to become like one, then why do we see the upper system separated into an infinite number of pieces?

Answer: Everything is done to bring us to be One. After all, this system originates in One and ends in One, but to cover this interval, it must go through us, work with us to give our desire to receive pleasure the form of bestowal.

This is why the upper system branches out and separates in time, movement, and space into a variety of combinations of states so as to perform this action in the end. This entire splitting and imperfection, and all the flaws that the system clothes in exist only in relation to us. Doesn’t a mother playing with her child appear silly and unreasonable if you don’t understand for whom she is acting this way? A grown woman suddenly starts talking like a baby, what is this really?

But we understand that she does it for the child. And naturally, this is a flaw in her because it is not suitable for her age and position.

The same can be said regarding the upper system: It doesn’t act for its own sake. The upper system is the world of Infinity. In general, there are no worlds without the creature. The moment the creature appears in the precise state when it awakens in the direction of the world of Infinity, that very moment the system of concealments, of weakened connections, which always follows the degrees of corruption, forms between the creature and Infinity.

The upper one is perfect, but it must lower itself to the level of the lower one so as to take care of it. But this is not like in our world when a mother takes care of her child. The upper system only begins to take care of us from our preliminary request.

Or it can awaken us secretly, as if acting from behind the scenes. But Kabbalah does not study processes that happen naturally, “in its own time (Beito),” since we will develop this way anyway. The only thing that interests us is “hastening time (Achishena).” This is why we study the system that we awaken ourselves.
[61530]
From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/21/2011, TES

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