Question: While reading The Zohar, is there a time when we must apply our own effort and a time when The Zohar gives us a push by itself?

Answer: First and foremost you must understand what you are facing. If you watch a film that’s 30 or 40 years old, you’ll notice how naive people were, how they acted and put the film together. But it was their reality, and they thought they were portraying their lives in all seriousness. The actors were great. It’s just that the people were different. If you looked at people 200 to 300 years ago, you would think of them as even more simple and primitive.

What would you discover looking at all the nations, at the world 2000 years ago? People practically lived in the “trees,” like true barbarians, even in Europe in the Middle Ages.

But what if you took a look at the people who wrote books like The Zohar 2000 years ago? This is a science, a philosophy about the perception of reality. If such a person sat among us today, you would feel insignificant next to him. The concept of time doesn’t apply here. You are being given the opportunity to come into contact with something that exists beyond our world, with a system that governs all of reality.

This governing system, these forces, and the souls that wrote these books should be the ones you direct your plea to and scream out like a small child, wishing to grow with their help, in their arms! It doesn’t matter how much you understand and what state you’re in because you’re not the one in control of it. However, from your given state try to understand where you are, whose arms you are in and ask for help.

Question: What should be the plea?

Answer: I don’t know. You have to sense the need. “I don’t lack anything. Please take me into your arms, I’m sleepy.” This is also a plea: to be held in their arms like a child who feels warm and secure in his mother’s arms. He senses her, smells her breast milk, and sleeps peacefully. Wouldn’t you want to feel like that? So go ahead and reveal at least this.

Or perhaps based on that sensation of being held in their arms, you already desire something more scrutinized and are capable of utilizing their help. After all, an adult retains all of his previous connection with his mother. The infant-mother connection doesn’t vanish, but only grows, becoming more conscious.

The greatness of the upper one determines my ability to utilize His help and to exalt Him in my eyes, thereby obligating Him to ascend higher. Thus I make the path of the upper one equal to Infinity and am able to receive from Him as if from Infinity. However, if I disregard the upper one, what can I possibly receive from Him?

Hence everything lies within my attitude towards my current degree. If I elevate the upper one above myself, I’m able to receive and attain from Him. The higher I elevate the upper one, to the highest possible degree I can only imagine, the more I can attain Him. If I put myself above the upper one, then what can I possibly receive from someone who’s lower than me?
[61634]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, The Zohar

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Question: How should we work before the December convention in order to deliver our message to the masses? Should we intensify the dissemination on the Internet, or should we focus more on internal work on unification?

Answer: Of course, we should work on the Internet so that as many people as possible from around the world will know about the convention.

On the other hand, when we get to the convention, we will have to worry about the world in a different way: through the network of our internal interconnection. At the convention I should forget about the Internet, about everything I left behind. My whole attention is focused on the friends who are here physically or are connected to us through virtual channels. In our network, we should manifest the connection and in it, reveal the image of man similar to the Creator, the vessel of Adam. Then the upper force will be revealed to us.

This vessel is called Arvut (mutual guarantee). After all, its attribute is reciprocity, mutual reinforcement, interconnection, and mutual care so that no one falls out from the common circle.

Imagine that we are standing on some sharp spire. If we don’t hold each other’s hands and don’t keep the general balance, we will all fall. We are like petals, surrounding the stem of a flower. It is enough for one of us to lose his balance and let go of someone’s hand, and all the petals will “fall.” This is the feeling of mutual guarantee.

Question: What is that “sharp spire?”

Answer: It is the Creator’s supportive force that manifests if we are connected. In the connection among us we find the One.
[61535]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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If we want to feel the real world we live in, we have to develop our sensations. Then we will begin to gradually see how limited our world depicted to us by our five bodily, “beastly,” senses is. It depends on these senses and exists as long as they exist. That is, our body is a limited egotistic desire, the existence of which is so short-lived.

A person returns to this world again and again and develops his senses. This is all in order to awaken him and to eventually develop sensations on a human level, on the level of similarity to the Creator, which is to develop the sensation of the Creator within him.

This sensation also arises through the five senses, but together they form the giving, altruistic desire, which absorbs what is on the outside. Today we perceive only what is inside us, while the spiritual organ of perception captures the external reality, according to the law of equivalence of form.

When a person calibrates his internal sensation, he rises above his egoistic desire towards the opposite desire: towards bestowal. Only so can he understand what bestowal is: as something opposite to him. As he rises, he begins to perceive what is outside of him and thus discovers the external world.

What will help me feel this external world? Exercises. If I am in contact with other people, with my friends in the group, if I feel them inside me and connect with them, we begin to awaken each other so as to feel that the friend is more important to me than myself. Thus we come closer to the out of body sensation because the spiritual world is “outside our skin.”

How can I “jump out of my skin”? With the help of the group. These are special people who also want to feel reality outside their beastly bodies. This reality is called “the eternal world” since it isn’t limited by the corporeal existence and the five bodily senses. So I begin to appreciate these friends since they help me acquire eternity. Thanks to them I can develop sensations that are independent of my body and rise above my present “self.” This is what the group is.

This is why the collective soul was shattered. The multitude of individual souls, numerous bodies in our world, enable us to develop the external, spiritual feeling in us by ourselves. The wisdom of Kabbalah was intended only to help us do that.

Thus we acquire the new body, the body of the soul. It also has five senses: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut. In other words, it is the desire to receive with five levels of Aviut. It is in this body that we begin to live our real life, a life on the level of bestowal, everlasting, eternal, and the one that we imagine in our fragmented senses, like this world.

The present physical reality gradually “disintegrates” inside a person. It isn’t because his corporeal body dies, but because he rises above this feeling. As we advance in the spiritual reality, this world disappears from our perception. It was depicted in our imagination from the start so that on the basis of this world we would discover the true one.
[61246]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/20/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Shamati #69 “First Will Be the Correction of the World”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Brightness of the Firmament,” (Start with: “Explanation: to Emanate Yeshsut”), Lesson 4
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Part 8, “Seder Siba Umesuvav,” Item 1, Lesson 24
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose,”  “The Absolute Good,” Lesson 2
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Question: You spoke about the importance of the last three days before the December convention. What is the best way to organize preparation during these days?

Answer: There is a notion of three days of transition from one state to another. During these three days, one must leave the past state and from a neutral state gradually transition into a new one.

This is why we really advise people, who wish to properly connect to the convention (essentially, convention is our unification), to try to keep this thought, this feeling, to be in anticipation of general unity, especially within the three preceding days. This will help them experience unity with higher intensity and reveal at least a part of the upper world in it for themselves. This is exactly what we expect from our mutual action.

A convention is not a regular event when we gather, sing, attend lectures, dance, and participate in the gatherings of friends. A convention is first and foremost our uniting into a single desire of mutual bestowal. Once we form this desire, we will immediately feel the next level of our development in it, which exists beyond our world. Essentially, this is what we aspire to.
[61618]
From the Sunday Virtual Lesson Series 11/20/2011

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According to our attitude toward the environment, we can see how effectively we are working to raise the importance of the friends in our eyes. We must understand that we cannot estimate their true height, but only the height that we ascribe to them. My estimate of the environment is completely subjective and depends on me alone.

We need to form an image of the group before us in order to advance. They cannot interrupt me in any way, everything depends on me. Then we begin to see that it isn’t an external environment but the internal vessel that was built by my efforts. I use this vessel and bring it to the desired form, designing and shaping this vessel like dough. My whole spiritual advancement depends on it.

The higher, broader, and more important the vessel is within my reason, the greater is my advancement. I will feel that this vessel is mine because I have built and shaped it myself. I could have built it another way, underestimating and humiliating the friends, but instead I built a powerful group, where each member is the greatest in his generation. And now this whole spiritual vessel belongs to me.

I feel all this in my reason because I do all of it myself. Furthermore, I am constantly developing this attitude towards the environment because there are always foreign thoughts and desires that divert me: Envy, lust, and ambition “take a person out of this world,” meaning from the state he is in. This is an invitation for me to develop the importance of the environment and to rise to the next degree. This is the way we advance.

If a person understands that the external environment itself doesn’t exist, but is only an image created of his own world he built, he receives this vessel in order to work with it within reason. In his attitude to the Creator he has to be above reason.

But the environment has only the form a person gives to it. The environment is like a springboard, means to advance, and according to the height a person raises the importance of the environment to, he rises himself.
[61433]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee) (abridged version)“: The Torah was not given to our fathers because the commandment of “Love thy friend as thyself,” the axis of the whole Torah and around which all the commandments revolve, cannot be observed by an individual, but only through the consent of an entire nation. And this is why it took until they came out of Egypt, when they became worthy of observing it. And then they were first asked if each and every one of the nation agreed to take that commandment upon himself. And once they agreed to it, they were given the Torah.

We learn about the structure of the spiritual world, the creation of the soul, which is the only creature, and about the shattering of the soul that got divided into many parts from Kabbalistic sources like “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah (Pticha),” “The Study of the Ten Sefirot“, and the Ari’s “The Tree of Life”. We can say that these parts of the soul also existed before, but they were merged together in one intention, in one thought, in a special state.

In the first state there was the one notion of Infinity, which included the vessel that was equal to the Light. Their equality, connection, and adhesion were provided by the power of the Light. All the souls, parts, and desires were there previously, but the Light held it all together and so they remained imperceptible.

Then the second state was created: the shattered vessel that is totally different from the Light and exists under its own authority—the desire to receive in order to receive. Thus, the shattering of the vessels brought the creature to the state of “this world.”

Finally, as the third state, the vessel once again becomes equal to the Light. We reach adhesion, but by ourselves now.

Eventually, we go through this whole process consciously, we understand and feel it. The descent into our world was prepared from Above, and the present state of ascent is the time of correction. Therefore, today we feel that we are at a very special point in history, which Kabbalists designate as “1995.” It is the border after which the general spiritual ascent of humanity begins.
[61447]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Writings of Rabash “And It Shall Be When Thou Art Coming to the Land Which the Lord Thy God Giveth Thee”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Beresheet (Genesis),” “The Brightness of the Firmament,” (Start with: “The second brightness of the firmament”), Item 3, Lesson 3
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Preface to The Book of Zohar, Item 19, Lesson 8
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Question: How do we need to unite with each other before the December convention? How do we prepare for it to experience everything the right way?

Answer: We do not do anything different: We read the same articles, we hear the same things, but still, it is written: “It has to be like new in your eyes.” Why is it said, “like new”? Because you renew it by revealing your Aviut, your new details of perception, more and more.

We know that when we are served a new dish, we have no idea how to approach it. But once we have tasted it plenty of times and become accustomed to it like to “our mother’s cooking” which has been familiar to us since childhood, then we can enjoy its taste to the maximum.

The same happens in the spiritual Partzufim. The first time the Light enters, it is nothing else but the Light of Nefesh. The second time it is already the Light of Ruach that enters the same old Reshimot (informational genes), the third time it is the Light of Neshama, and so on.

In other words, every time man advances, he returns to what he has already experienced and discovers a greater depth, feels more flavor in it, as it is written: “You will eat what has long been laid in store for you.” It is the same with us. Every time, in the same place, but only deeper and deeper, we have to be more connected with one another, more unified and directed towards a true connection.

Let us hope for this and raise our prayer so it would become a “prayer of many,” in mutual guarantee.
[61524]
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/23/2011, The Zohar

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If I have a small child whom I’m going to send to a preschool because staying at home is no longer enough for his development, I try to place him in a group of slightly older children rather than younger ones so that he can learn from the older children. In other words, the higher my environment, the more opportunities I have to advance with it. And conversely, if I get into a company of primitive people, they relegate me to the level of their values. Everything depends on the environment.

We follow this principle when we make choices in our lives, seeing that “your environment today is you tomorrow.” For a person interested in growing, it is useful to be among great people. However, he has to realize that he has come there in order to grow. If he simply comes and sits among people not of his level, then the greater they are, the more he is annoyed by that. He wants to put them down.

However, if he comes with the purpose of growing in the environment of such people, the greater they are, the happier he is. His only lacks are the hatred and fire burning inside from the feeling of being so much lower than they are. But he is glad about such feelings because they spur him on and urge him to move forward.

Thus, everything depends on a person’s intention, on what he wants from his environment. A person can evaluate an external society by its values and interests, such as whether they like music and art, or whether they are educated and intelligent people. There are criteria with which the society can be tested.

But there are no criteria for such tests in a Kabbalistic environment. The only people who gather there are those whose point in the heart was awakened and they simply want to develop it. All of them go through constant ups and downs. No one knows on which degree he really is, not to speak of his friend’s degree.

Everything solely depends on how a person perceives the group, like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma who valued his small and simple students to such an extent that he was not able to advance without them.

Thus, it is very important to understand that the group, the environment, is something the person perceives inside by valuing the friends brought to him by the Creator, Who gave them the same desire toward spirituality. Now, I can create an environment for myself according to the height and values that are required for my advancement, according to how and where I want to advance.

Apart from that, now, I can study myself. The extent that I like seeing them as great is a sign of my really being willing to advance. After all, it is possible to advance only due to my environment. My wanting to see them as lower than myself means that I am looking for a way to satisfy my pride, not to advance.

Through our attitude toward our environment we can accurately measure our spiritual state. Am I aspiring toward the goal of creation, or am I looking for a nice feeling, filling my egoism with a sense of self-importance?
[61436]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/22/2011, Writings of Rabash

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