Question: Could you briefly formulate the purpose of the convention at the Arava desert?

Answer: We have one goal: having united, to reveal adhesion with the Creator. We have to reveal a close interconnection, a strong bond in reaching the goal, in ascending above our corporeal desires, above everything that appears to us in this world.

In our mind and feelings, we have to rise above the reality that we feel here and unite all our hearts and thoughts. Our goal is not to simply assemble the common “We” out of individual “I’s,” but to rise to an even higher degree and become one whole. It’s similar to drops of water merging into one big drop without leaving any boundaries between them.

The influence of the upper Light helps us achieve this state. We can’t imagine this state, but the Light can lead us to it. This ascent to the first degree of unity will be the crossing of the Machsom (the barrier separating us from spirituality). Further, we’ll find ourselves on steps of the spiritual ladder, and we’ll be able to climb to the very end of correction.

In addition to it, in our first spiritual state we want to reveal forces to correct the world and to help it on its path toward the purpose of creation where we all unite in order to merge with the Creator. We want the world to reach it peacefully rather than through sufferings, which also can push us forward.

Thus, all our work is in finding the spiritual world, that is, in degrees of merging with the Creator. Then, we will help humanity to reach a predestined state of perfection in a good way where we’ll all give pleasure to the Creator together.

Question: What kind of thought should each friend arrive at the convention with?

Answer: I want to lose my personal self-awareness. I want to rise in my mind and thoughts above the body and unite with the mind and feelings of all the friends who will form the collective head and the collective heart, as it is said: “Like one man with one heart.”

We should imagine this picture at the time of the convention by trying to live it, to live inside of it. I’m no longer an owner of myself; I “sold” myself to the group; I’m loyal to it, and it takes care of me like the upper Partzuf takes care of the lower one, like the whole takes care of the individual, like the mind takes care of the body. From now on, I’m driven and governed by the group.
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From the 4th pat of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Our work is divided into several stages. In the first stage, a person is totally disconnected from the work. This period lasts for ages, throughout human history.

Then a person is awakened from Above and begins to feel how an initial desire to discover the purpose of creation, the Creator, the meaning of his life, begins to grow within him. He begins to work on it, comes to the group, and begins to study. In the meantime, he doesn’t understand what he does. Just like a newborn baby, he doesn’t understand where he is, who he is, nor who the people around him are.

Gradually, he advances to clearer and better understood states, although just like a child, he does many foolish things, not knowing and not feeling it. He follows the advice of the “elders,” Kabbalists, and repeats what all the others do, until gradually, he begins to understand these actions.

Clearly, he doesn’t learn by performing these actions. Rather, as a result of these exercises, even if he doesn’t know what he is doing, he draws the Light upon himself. Thus, a person advances just like a baby who doesn’t need to know what makes him grow. He develops according to nature’s plan.

But gradually, he begins to understand how he should advance and on what his efforts should be focused. He begins to understand that the advancement is against our nature and that we should put our desires aside, not waiting for the body to agree to spiritual advancement. After all, the interests of the body are absolutely contrary to it.

So, we have to look for advice as to how to perform actions that our desire does not support and that do not bring pleasure to his spirit. This is intentional, and a person faces tremendous internal resistance, and he doesn’t understand why. He doesn’t understand how it is possible to advance if it repels his desire so much. Why should he work if he doesn’t fill his desire the way it has been up until now?

Even if I wish to advance against my desire, I still have to picture some abstract reward, at least something. We often act against our will at work, in sports, in filling our family duties, and so forth. Here, at least, it is clear to us what the reward is and why we should do it.

You wouldn’t even be able to lift a finger if you didn’t feel that it is rewarding. Your body simply would have no fuel to perform the action. Where do you get this fuel?

The search for fuel, the request for this external power, is called the search for the power of faith. A person doesn’t want to work on his own fuel because it will undoubtedly be egotistic, and he really needs some external energy and motivation.

This search with the support of the group brings him to the revelation of the Light that gives him the power to advance above his bodily desires. Now, he advances not in order to fill his egoism, but in the Light of faith that enables him to work above his egoistic desire.

Here, one needs to constantly overcome his desire. These steps are called “forty years of wandering in the desert,” in which a person receives the power to work without any compensation for his desires. His actions are above his desires and against them, and the result doesn’t go together with his desires either because he doesn’t see any personal benefit in it.

However, he can do it! His desires support him, although everything in them resist it, which is called by “faith above reason.” When a person can work this way, he moves on to working with the actual desires, and he can even use them in the power of faith without any egoistic benefits, but only for the sake of the Creator.

That is, the way is divided into two parts. First, we rise above our desire to receive called the “desert.” Then, we begin to work with it and enter the “land of Israel.”
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: While reading The Book of Zohar, I constantly get distracted in my thoughts. I understand that it’s good because “from Zion (exit) will go forth the Torah.” But still, how do I hold on to the internal concentration?

Answer: We have to try. Let’s assume that I’m called in for a trial to investigate how much I care about the group. According to the outcome, I will receive either reward or punishment. Then, while reading the text, I will worry about attracting various good forces and alienating or sweetening the evil ones. I read The Zohar for that purpose.

First of all, the trial is evaluating me only in one direction: connection to or disconnection from the group, how much I’m bonded with or separated from it. Thus I have to awaken the influence of good forces that help me to connect to the group, and conversely, remove the obstructing forces.

Besides that, I have to see that all the actions that pass through me are meant to show me clarifications that I have to perform and various factors that strengthen my connection with the group in a direct or indirect way. It’s because in the end, both good and evil are meant to force me to strengthen my connection with the environment. Only on that principle is the trial being held.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/15/2011, The Zohar

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The level that a person is at totally determines his thoughts and feelings. We cannot think about, understand, feel, and plan something, or yearn for something outside this level. It’s all determined by our state, the height we’ve reached.

The desire to receive operates according to the amount of Light that is revealed within it: from the maximum amount in the world of Infinity to one of the 125 degrees that descend from it in which the Light diminishes and so affects the desire to receive less and less. As the Light diminishes, the desire gradually becomes more murky, corrupt, and distant from the Light in its attributes.

As the Light shines less upon the desire, the desire discovers its own attribute: egoism. It all depends upon the force of the Light that bestows upon the desire.

So we shouldn’t focus on our physiological body or our thoughts, but only worry about the desires that have to be corrected by the Light. Since the state of the desire is totally dependent upon the Light that shines on it and keeps it at a certain height, we have to think only about the influence the Light has on us: How we can constantly try to place ourselves under the influence of the Light in the maximal and most optimal way.

I don’t know how the Light will affect me and where it comes from. I only need to do what Kabbalists advise us and to perform actions that will uncover the way to the Light and will allow it to influence me—and then I will change. If I don’t do that, I will not change.

The main advice is to connect with my environment and the books according to the teacher’s instructions. Thus, I open myself to the influence of the Light, and all the rest depends on it. The Light will influence the desire, and the new desire will bring new thoughts, understanding, and sensations and will reveal the world to me anew. We have to feel all that in our desire.

A person’s desires, his heart, totally depends on the Light’s influence. A person’s connection with the Sefirot is determined by the degree that the Light reaches him and corrects his desire. This determines the height of his spiritual ladder. The Sefirot are the attributes of the Light in which it dresses when it goes through the worlds in order to bestow upon a person’s general desire.

The Light goes through filters that have certain attributes, and under the influence of the Light, the desire begins to change. Instead of the ordinary desire to receive, which lacks any character and direction, there is a concrete desire that belongs to a certain height and resembles the Light.

These desires can already be called by the names of the Sefirot because they “shine” when they want to accurately repeat the actions of the Light. This means that the Sefirot are dressed in the desire and a person begins to acquire the form of the Sefirot, the form of the spiritual body, and thus becomes similar to the Light.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, Shamati #68

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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee),” Lesson 6
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Our attitude toward the ultimate goal, the desired state, is influenced by two factors. The first one is a sense of the greatness and importance of the Creator, the property of bestowal. The second one is the greatness and importance of the creature who is able to achieve this property. From these two factors, disturbances come, which we feel on the path of achieving the goal.

Sometimes, my egoistic desire says: “Who is this Creator that I should listen to Him,” showing me that there is no value in this goal, the property of bestowal. Thus, it helps me gain a foothold on the path because I will be able to demand the Light to help me and influence me. After all, all development at the human degree happens because of our request to the Light to affect us.

Thus, we build our own spiritual form. Indeed, all the previous forms: the still, vegetative, and animate do not belong to the spiritual human. These forces called angels, spirits, and devils are designed to help us. As in the physical world around us, there are forces of nature that ensure our existence. Similarly, in the spiritual world, there are forces that help our soul exist.

The first disturbance is directed against the greatness of the Creator, against his property of bestowal, and the second one is directed against my form of bestowal. Sometimes, it seems to me that the Creator is not important, but at other times, it seems to me that I am not.

To belittle the Creator is the task of Pharaoh who depicts Him for us as worthless and shouts: “I will rule myself! Why should I listen to him?” Thus, Pharaoh diminishes the greatness of the goal, the greatness of adhesion in the eyes of man.

There is work against the other disturbances when it seems to me that the Creator is great and important, but I can do nothing. The Creator is the righteous one, and I am a sinner. At this time, Pharaoh is leaving the stage, and his place is taken by other rulers living outside Egypt who go to war against man.

There are also the higher forces, angels in the hands of the Creator, like Pharaoh. However, they talk about the greatness of the goal and at the same time, about the person’s weakness. They are like the scouts who were sent to check the land of Israel and came back saying that the goal is great, the land is beautiful, and incredible fruits grow there, but who are you to conquer it? Come to your senses, this is not for you!

A person begins to eat himself up because these forces show him how low and insignificant he is and how many crimes he has committed. Then, he either sinks into his past and starts digging in it, or he remains in the present and loses all his strength, unable to move a finger. He cannot force himself to come to the group and participate in some way. That is how these disturbances work.

We should understand that these limitations mold out of us the human form, a giver. It is like a statue where one master takes a piece of marble and carves a sculpture out of it, and the other cuts everything unnecessary out of this piece until the desired form remains.

Likewise, we should look from both sides. From one side, we should look at the complete form, and from the other, we should learn what is missing. Sometimes, we should work with the Inner Light and at other times, with the Surrounding Light, or with the inner and external desires. Thus, a person “carves” himself, his form that is similar to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)“ (abridged version): Arvut is like two people in a boat, when one of them begins to drill a hole in the boat they will both drown together, that prevents the observers of the Torah from even beginning to fully keep the measure of “Love thy friend as thyself,” which is the ladder for reaching Dvekut (adhesion) with Him, and so they shall both drown together!

Mutual guarantee is more than being responsible for others. The spiritual vessel is a common vessel. With the Surrounding Light, the Light that Reforms, the Creator awakens a certain amount of Reshimot (informational genes) and brings them to the first level of unity called “this world.” This is how the Reshimot see their reality: When they begin to draw closer, they appear to each other in the form of the friends.

Eventually we have to unite, and so we have to care for everyone. We don’t sign any strict contracts made by lawyers, and we don’t keep anyone by force, but we try to support every one by thoughts and desires.

As far as the spiritual vessel is concerned, we have to understand that it is common. It doesn’t belong to anyone, but is between us, in our unity. It isn’t strings stretched between us, although this is how we depict our mutual connection. Actually there is no separate you and me in spirituality. We are all like drops of water that merge into one big drop, and the previous state disappears without any trace.

From this example we can understand how different two adjacent levels are in their intensity. If a hundred friends on the first level, including me, unite into one drop, then on the next level the drop becomes me. The same thing happens to everyone: Each of us grows one hundred times bigger compared to the previous level. We begin to connect again in mutual guarantee, and then on the next level we grow ten thousand times bigger compared to the first level, and so on until we make up the whole Partzuf of Zeir Anpin.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee)” (abridged version): If Israel keeps the Arvut, they can bring contentment to their Maker.

Mutual guarantee is the vessel of general bestowal. We connect in this vessel, forming, shaping it. It doesn’t exist by itself, and it waits for us to connect to it. This means that our desires aimed at bestowal upon others connect and thus form the vessel called mutual guarantee. Only from this mutual bestowal can we reach bestowal upon the Creator.

We discover that in our world we can no longer exist in the desires to receive and that we must rise to the desires to bestow. Likewise, in the vessel of mutual guarantee we also discover that we cannot live in it without bestowal upon the upper one, the Creator. Mutual guarantee among us alone is meaningless. What was the purpose of the shattering of the vessels? Why did we go through this whole process? Why did we connect? It seems that our work is futile. We bestow upon each other, but don’t actually fulfill the bestowal.

We can only truly fulfill it in our attitude towards the Creator. The mutual guarantee that we attain can be fulfilled only if we aspire to something higher, the search for the meaning of bestowal.

Why? It’s because the Creator is the source of our reality. When we connect, we discover its upper source in the mutual connection, which is called “generality plus one.” It is revealed to us like the Creator, and then we begin to understand and to attain the Thought of Creation: He has created us as such low and base beings so that we have to connect on the path of suffering and troubles.

Only then does the question about the meaning of life, from which we begin to ascend, become accurate and bring us to the Light. Then we also discover that we cannot simply bestow upon each other because there is no need for that. Having no choice, we have to aim our bestowal towards the upper source, and only in this way do we fulfill ourselves.

In doing this, we discover a higher dimension: adhesion with the upper one. Then we receive the answer to the question about the meaning of life. So, mutual guarantee is the tool that leads us to adhesion with the Creator.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/14/2011, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

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Writings of Rabash, “There is no Holiness Higher than the Creator”: Most important is to reach the degree of the spiritual embryo. As in corporeality, at the time that a woman becomes pregnant, it is definite that she will also give birth. But all of the worries are that the woman needs to become pregnant. It is like this in the spiritual work. The most difficult for us is to enter the state of the spiritual embryo, that is, to receive into our desire to enjoy another desire called the desire to bestow.

When man merits to become the spiritual embryo, that is, the desire to bestow enters into the desire to receive, this means that the Creator confines one form within the other form. And it is a great innovation, an actual miracle, because it is against our nature. And only the Creator can change nature; it is not in the hands of man.

And this is indeed a great innovation for a person who discovers these changes within himself. As a person goes through these stages in spiritual work, the upper force builds in him different forms and forms within forms. As a result, when a person discovers the forms that awaken in him, he builds himself.

The upper force operates, and we are the results of its action, the Creator’s work. Our work is to try to discover His work, that is, the new forms that are created within us.

A “form” is an intention for the sake of bestowal. And afterwards, an additional form appears: the desire to receive, which adopts the form of bestowal and receives for the sake of bestowal. From the connection and inclusion between the different forms, one by one, we attain the Creator, as it is said: “By Your actions we will know You.”

All of these changes happen to our substance, and we attain them. After all, our substance is desire, thus we feel the changes that it goes through: good or bad, in relation to us or to others. In this way a person builds his responses to the forms he goes through.

The more that he raises himself above his feeling in order to be an observer who doesn’t depend upon his feelings, the faster he discovers the inner nature of this action, with no connection to the substance. This is the meaning of “faith above reason.”

If he only searches for the new forms and opens himself towards them without preventing it, but rises above his feelings and wants to discover the forms of bestowal, then he becomes the Creator’s partner in this work. And then the person begins to move with the Creator and makes exactly the same movements.

He even precedes the Creator and prepares himself in advance for all the changes that are about to happen to him each moment. This preparation accelerates his advancement and causes him to happily receive each form that comes to him, pleasant or unpleasant. Indeed, he already raised himself above his egoistic feelings and desires and now identifies only with the forms of bestowal.

This is called attaining the Masach (screen), the force of overcoming the unpleasant feelings within one’s egotistic desires.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/13/2011, Writings of Rabash

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