Question: Baal HaSulam says in the article “Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings” that the main thing is to start and not to leave in the middle. What does that mean?

Answer: You can be off track in the corporeal world too if you consider customs as commandments. A person simply gets used to performing certain actions instead of revealing the internal commandments by himself, as the correction of his attributes.

When a person corrects himself, he is dealing with the Creator, and he wants to draw the Light, to become like Him, and to approach adhesion with Him. But if the commandments become “physical actions” that a person is used to, he doesn’t follow the spiritual path, but simply learns to perform certain rituals accepted in his environment.

We don’t say that this is wrong, but we do say that it doesn’t correct the soul. This is not that reason for which we exist in the world. It is only an external condition that may make the true internal correction easier. In the perfect state, internality and externality should support each other. Unfortunately, however, this doesn’t actually happen.

One shouldn’t stop along the spiritual path. When a person begins to correct himself, he discovers how stupid he is. This breaks his heart and he cannot continue. He discovers that he isn’t the hero who corrects himself and gains from it like he thought he was.

A similar plan can work in ordinary life because a person works egotistically on something external. Here, on the contrary, he has to use something external in order to work on his egotism. This work is completely opposite to, unusual for him. We are not used to the idea that we have to change in our root, our essence. Now it isn’t that I am working on something, but rather that something is working on me. Besides, I don’t have to wait passively, like a patient during a medical treatment, but rather must ask all the time: “Change me! Change me!”

How can we fulfill this? If I could feel and understand more, that would be different. But how can I demand something that I don’t even want? How can I ask for something that is contrary to my nature? “Let me love others, let me connect to them,” it is like asking for the worst troubles. Naturally I want to use the world in my favor, yet I have to ask the Creator to change the program in me: “Change my heart and mind, it doesn’t matter what I was before, just make me care for others.”

At the same time, a burst of altruistic feelings that a person may be able to hold on to for a moment after being disappointed by everything else isn’t enough here. No, one cry won’t help. You have to constantly support it and keep this new, paradoxical desire clean all the time.

This effort seems impossible. This is why it says: “A thousand enter a room, but only one exits to the Light.” All the others also do great work correcting themselves in some way, but the circumstances are different, and it isn’t their turn now.

So the problem is that the commandment to love others is contrary to our nature.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/2011, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Writings of Rabash “What Is the Preparation to Receive the Torah”
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Question: What’s the right way to enter the convention and what should its result be?

Answer: In order for the convention to produce good results, everyone has to be “burning” with anticipation and inspiration. Everyone has to feel the strongest “hunger” for unity, in which the upper force that reigns among us will be revealed. It is written, “I dwell within my nation.” This is the preparation to the convention.

As a result of it, we should really reveal the force of our unity, reveal the upper Light in practice, the energy of the interconnection between us—not in emotions, but in real sensation. This will be the real Light, with a specific level of Aviut, with a specific mechanism of connection between us.

By feeling out these qualities, we begin to reveal something beyond our bodies, to reveal in new vessels, in a new perception. Then we will detach from the body and will enter a reality existing outside of the flesh. That is how we will enter the human dimension.

Let us hope that this will happen! Let’s get to work!
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”: That is the reason he conditioned the mutual guarantee in the participation of the entire world. It shows that an individual cannot come to the desired goal on the spiritual path if not through the aid of all the people of the world.

This is very important. Even the greatest Kabbalist never attains the end of correction unless the whole world attains it to its final detail. It’s similar to how the body cannot be perfect if the function of at least one of its cells is disrupted. After all, this is an integral system.

That means the whole world has to reach the end of correction and the only question is, in what order do we correct ourselves. Some souls awakened before Abraham’s time, and some—in subsequent life cycles. Some are awakening today, and some haven’t awakened yet. Everyone has their own time and place in the common work of correction.

Thus, each and every correction that one performs affects the whole world.

A person incorporates the whole world and is included in every person as well. And that means everyone is corrected through him. This somewhat explains the laws of the integral system to us, which is exposing the universal interconnection today.

It is said, “But one sinner destroyeth much good.” It means that one’s sinning reduces the weight on the scale, as though that person took back the goodness he had put on the scale. By that one turns the world backwards.

This is the mutual guarantee, the real situation de-facto. It was concealed until now, which is why we were not required to observe this law, but today it is being revealed and is advancing the corresponding demands to us.

There is the desired and the actual. The actual is the system of universal interconnection that is being revealed where we are all included in one another. 80 years ago Baal HaSulam already wrote that the whole world is one family. Back then people didn’t feel it yet, but today we are finally starting to discover a certain connection, even though it still isn’t as tight as in a family. Even though our interdependence is unwanted, it is already obvious.

From one day to the next, this systematic connection will come through more and more clearly. We will see that every person influences everyone and is subject to everyone’s influence. This will seem horrible to us: How can we be under the whole world’s power?

There is simply nowhere for me to run, and that means I have to take care of worldwide education and correction of correct, good interconnections between people as fast as possible. Because this horrible interconnection really does exist, we all have to awaken at least a bit of pity, compassion, and empathy for others in every person. After all, we are all interconnected for good or for bad, and our influence is passed from each person to everyone and from everyone to each.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/3/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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We all receive some initial sense of the importance of the bitter fruit of bestowal, but we cannot bear its terribly bitter taste. However, if we constantly tell each other how important it is, then everyone will be imbued with this importance. On the other hand, a person will feel more clearly how much this repels him and is against his whole nature. He will sense that this thing is extremely valuable, but is beyond him.

If a person is in the environment that tells him that there is no choice because this fruit is vital for him, and it is his entire life, then he agrees to change his nature. He begins do discover that there is a remedy for this and demands the force that would change him: the Light that Reforms.

Thus gradually, he discovers a new taste. He begins to find sweetness in this bitterness by adding even more bitterness!

The Talmud gives an example that it is forbidden to sprinkle lemon or grapefruit with salt because it softens the natural bitterness and turns it into sweetness. As it is said: “Salt sweetens meat.”

To the bitter fruit, we add an even more bitter component—the anti-egoistic screen—and then it turns sweet! Thus, a person gets a remedy called the force of bestowal.

And then the bitterness, which he felt before in his egoistic desires, becomes sweet due to the screen. That is, he obtains a connection with bestowal because bestowal turns into pleasure for him. And the Giver, that is, the Creator, becomes close to him to such an extent that a person feels the desire to bestow to the Creator.

He then develops this taste for bestowal, as in our life we develop a taste for new food, and it becomes pleasure for us. A child will not drink wine because it is sour or bitter, he would rather have sweet juice. He will refuse to eat very spicy and sour food that we eat. Our normal tastes also develop over  our lifetime, and we can develop a new attitude to the things that previously we could not tolerate.

The same happens in our inner work. Bestowal is a very bitter fruit. There is nothing attractive in it; just the opposite, everything in it repels. However, if a person cares about the importance of bestowal, this importance turns into the right line for him, and bitterness into the left line. And then he builds a new middle line, a means to taste the sweetness in bitterness.

It is completely like the Megillat Esther (Book of Esther), which means the disclosure (Megillah) of concealment (Esther). Sweetness is felt in bitterness, and “darkness will shine like the Light.” And so everything that we felt as bitter becomes sweet due to a new attitude.

But “the earth will not bear fruit until man is created.” The fruit already exist, and the earth is ready to bear them, just a person has to be born to feel that there is fertile soil, bearing fruit, and it is sweet; otherwise, it is not a fruit. That is, these are the fruits that are revealed as a result of man’s work, and without it, he will not reap the fruits.

To the extent that he built the middle line, a new attitude to what he felt bitter, he will reveal that this is a sweet fruit.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Imagine your state to be the same as when you wish to give your children something that tastes awful but is very good for them. They don’t understand it at all and are unwilling to accept it. Similarly, we must consume an extremely bitter fruit and enjoy it at the same time. But how can I enjoy such bitterness? It’s like a lemon that makes my mouth pucker just by looking at it.

There is food we eat just to accent sweetness: something very sour, salty, or bitter. We add ingredients to dilute the taste a little and then feel it through the contrast of opposites, like the “benefit of the Light from the darkness.” The Light is sweetness for our desire to receive pleasure.

But here we are talking about the transition towards unselfish love, the bitter fruit. I reject it by nature, and I am unable to feel in it any special ultimate greatness. I need to develop a desire for it so I will constantly increase and develop my aspiration towards this bitter and painfully unpleasant fruit, along with my desire for sweetness that will only keep growing. Is this really possible?

However, this is necessary to pull us out of the animate degree, where we develop under the influence of our ego, in pursuit of pleasure. In reality, animals do not really search for pleasure; they simply operate according to their instincts.

But man begins to rise above the animate degree and acquire human desires, so he invents additional pleasures. His desire to receive pleasure grows much more than the desire of a regular animal that lives its life without developing, as it is written: “A one-day-old calf is already considered to be a bull.”

But as we develop in this world, we search for greater pleasures. Our ego is always growing and keeps creating new sources of pleasure for itself. This way we grow out of the animate degree and turn into enormous beasts.

And then we transition to a completely different—human—degree. And the first thing that happens here is our loss of the drive for egoistic fulfillment. We begin to feel that this life is no longer fulfilling us: Everything becomes bland and flavorless. A person becomes depressed and starts thinking about the meaning of life.

Many people are already feeling this way today. The degree of egoistic development is coming to an end, and we no longer wish to imagine its more and more tasty and tempting fruit. We question the purpose! And this is the next degree.

And here we feel that the purpose is bitter. We discover that if we wish to see the purpose and really reveal it, we can only do this on the next degree, which is opposite to the one where I am now. I need to develop a desire for a very bitter fruit.

After all the sweets I have had: ice-cream, candy, and pastries, I must desire something that causes pain, weakness, bitterness, and soreness in my mouth. This fruit is so repulsive that my nature does not allow me to even come near it.

The only that can be done here is to raise its importance. Everyone needs to keep telling me about its benefits, even though I am repelled by it. This importance can be developed by the environment, which will convince me of the value of this bitter fruit that disgusts me so much that I cannot even look at it.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/1/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we fulfill the first stage of the group’s goal in the upcoming convention?

Answer: First, we have to prepare so that we understand that only thanks to our connection, mutual guarantee (which is also the name of the convention), we awaken the Light. The Light operates on us because it is drawn by our desire. We want it to appear and to change us so we place ourselves under its influence and let it do whatever it wants with us.

After all, we are filled by the Light thanks to the desires we receive from the world, as if they were our own desire to receive, our AHP. So we receive the Light only to enable us to exist and to carry on and develop the method of correction. All the rest will flow onto the world.

Thus, the group will achieve a state of greatness (Gadlut) in spirituality. The group doesn’t have to be big. We don’t need millions for that. It isn’t one percent of humanity, but much less. I don’t know the exact number, but what is important is to awaken the Light. With regard to that, the quality of the group is more important.

So at the convention we have to focus on quality, on the connection between us, and thus we will advance.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Writings of Rabash  “There’s A Greater Advantage to the Work than the Reward”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Chapter “Pekudei (Accounts),” “The Place of Noga, Netzah,” Item 579, Lesson 23
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 8, Start with: “From this explanation you will understand,” Item 20, Lesson 9
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings,” “All of Israel Are Responsible for One Another,” Lesson 7
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Question: How was Abraham able to unite a nation back in his time if there was no Torah that united them yet?

Answer: The Torah is not a book or words, but the Light that reforms, the force that becomes revealed on the condition that we perform special actions. But all physical objects and words are just symbols.

The science of Kabbalah is called the true Torah, its inner part. But a Kabbalah book by itself is still not Kabbalah. A person can use it to gain the notion called the wisdom of Kabbalah. Everything depends on one’s approach: If he wants to use this wisdom for his own sake, then for him this is abstract information. But if he wants to use it to attain love for the neighbor, it is called Torah.

And this does not even depend on the book so much. Other books, such as the Talmud, Torah, and Psalms also contain the Light that reforms. But the Light contained in Kabbalistic books is closer to us, stands out more, and is much easier to extract. That is why we should use precisely these books.

By virtue of these books, even modern people like us who are small and confused, having no understanding, can imagine that we are coming closer to another state, to a different, new world. The author intentionally placed Light that is close to us into the book.

In contrast, the Light contained in other books, such as the Torah and Talmud, is contained deep inside. But in Kabbalistic books, it shines as if from the very surface since it is closest to you.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/2/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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Question: What should the music at the convention be like so it would really warm people’s hearts?

Answer: Joyful music is not mindless partying. Rather, it has to awaken a good feeling within me, sympathy for what is happening. At the convention, as well as every day, we must imagine our future state that we aspire to, from which we want to receive an illumination, a glow, an influence. Let the Light that reforms come from there and draw us there.

Looking at something beautiful, I am automatically drawn to it. But in this case I have to imagine the beauty myself, as an exercise before and during the convention. In December we will immerse ourselves in the world of the future for 72 hours. We have a single vessel in which a general bestowing force becomes revealed and we all dwell in mutual bestowal.

What do we discover by that other than a feeling of euphoria? What are our relationships? How do we interact in the family, among friends, at work (with our coworkers, employees, and employers), in the economy of the new generation, in ecology, in society? We are entering a new world and are starting to check its details: culture, upbringing, science, our attitude to all kinds of things…

And that’s where music can help us develop the right approach to life. And it doesn’t matter if it has words or not.

However, music should not draw me to any sad thoughts, to anything reminding me of a descent or despair. And this prohibition is effective in our day-to-day work as well. Sad music, the left line can only be used if I have built a strong right line ahead of time and am in it. As Baal HaSulam writes, only half an hour a day can be spent on critical self-analysis, on the condition that I worked in the right line for 23.5 hours.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/11, “The Love for the Creator and Love for the Created Beings”

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