Question: The last three conventions in Italy, Spain, and Moscow were special. What should the group do now?

Answer: The end of the convention means that now you have to rise to the level of this convention in your “everyday” state. We seemed to have pulled ourselves up onto the bar, and now we have to stand on our feet on it.

In other words, we put a ladder to the next step and climbed to the top. Here is my current state:

We exerted efforts during the convention and have barely made it there. And now, we have to stand up on this rung—all together.

This is our everyday work until the next convention. As soon as we stand upright, as soon as we master this step, we will be ready for it.

We should not hold it automatically, simply putting a check mark on a date in a month or two. Maybe, it will mature in a week or two, or on the contrary, in half a year; it all depends on how quickly we realize and master the potential for our ascent to the top. Everybody has to master it within himself.

When I was at the convention, the entire ascent was embodied for me in our world group. I united with the friends and through this unity rose higher.

However, it happened under the influence of communication, the society, the external environment. I felt ready to merge with them, to be together with them. At least, there were minutes like this and perhaps even hours.

Now, not being under the influence of the friends, I must do this within myself: rise from my knees and stand on my feet. This is a serious and painstaking work when I feel that the charge I received from the friends lives in me, helps me with my group and the world group in dissemination and in studies, and all the time gives me energy so that I act together with them.

The unity that took place there, at the convention, under the external influence, must be mirrored in my realization.

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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson from Moscow 6/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What should we focus on: external circulation of Kabbalah or inner connection?

Answer: Firstly, disseminate outwards to let people know that the crisis can be overcome, that in reality this is not a crisis. In the same way, Rabbi Shimon’s descent before the decisive ascent turned out to be the nicest and most desirable state.

The crisis is intended for our good. Using it correctly, we can arrive at the best state easily, freely, and without problems.

Recently, I was asked: “What can replace the human desire for something greater than the necessities of normal life?” That is basically what we have to explain to people.

The crisis is really for our good. One way or the other, we will reach balance between ourselves, balance with nature. We have nowhere to escape: Either the matrix of nature, getting closer to us, cuts us into pieces by force and re-connects us into one “mixture,” one collective “dough,” or we come to this voluntarily in order to change ourselves and unite. The difference is huge.

If we understand this movement correctly, then of course, the crisis is for our good. We can transform a tragic life that threatens us and our children into a beautiful ascent. We have to explain this to the greatest possible number of people.

While Kabbalah was spreading through a small stream from teacher to disciple, it sufficed for a few people with high knowledge to pass it maximally, accurately, and clearly. However, this stream has become a wide river that involves the entire humanity. A global, integral crisis is coming, and we are not talking about the height of the teaching, about the details, but about the breadth and accessibility.

With this purpose, Baal HaSulam wrote such articles as “The Revelation of Godliness,” “The Mutual Guarantee,” and “The Freedom.” They provide initial information, properly described and addressed to the widest possible audience.

In our time, the overall force of correction exists namely in the masses, in the huge masses of people. Through us, they understand what the matter is, we make their life easier with love towards them. In response, they will give a little push forward, and it will affect us as well. It is said in this regard that the nations of the world carry us to the Temple of the Creator, that is, raise us. They raise us specifically because we give them the method.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson from Moscow 6/14/2011, Shamati #4

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, Letter 33
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The Book of Zohar – Selected, Chapter, “Truma (Donation), ‘The Soul of Every Living Thing,'” Item 217, Lesson 9
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Talmud Eser Sefirot Part 1 “Table of Questions and Answers for the Meaning of the Words,” Item 18, Lesson 28
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Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah, Item 11, Lesson 7
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“Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah),” Item 5, Lesson 3
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Question: How can we not retreat from demanding the truth so we would finally reveal that we are lying to ourselves?

Answer: If a person is able to hold on to the truth, then he is very lucky. We see that there are many people in the world who don’t need the truth and who don’t ask what they are living for.

In others this question already arises, but from the point of view of, “What am I suffering for?” That is, this is not a question about the meaning of life, but about how to find the taste in life now that you feel a bitter taste instead of sweet.

And there are other people who don’t ask about a good life, but about finding the truth in it. And there are people who don’t ask about the truth in life, but about who gave us this life, about the Creator. And this question is no longer about myself, because I no longer care who I am and what will happen with my life, one way or another. I want to come to know Him, to attain the Creator, and exist in Him—in the very source, the root.

There are many levels in this attitude depending on a person’s demand, his sensation and attainment. Here everything depends on the root of one’s soul and the current life cycle, meaning, at what stage of development he is on.

But even if in our current state we are still not granted the chance to ask about the truth, then we can develop these desires inside of us by means of the environment, the “teacher, group, and books,” and advance that way. However, this is not easy and it requires you to reveal what lies at the very depth of yourself, inside of your informational genes, Reshimot.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/11, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we explain to people why love is necessary?

Answer: You can love to eat fish for lunch, you can love your little son, or you can love your neighbor or the Creator. The same words designate completely different notions.

Is it worthwhile to praise love for the neighbor to a person who loves fish? How can you describe to him the pleasure from bestowal? What will he understand? That he has to give his fish to someone else? Is this love?

What does it mean to love the neighbor? It has a completely different meaning. Loving the neighbor means attaching his desire to yourself and working with your desire in order to fulfill his desire. Then we both meld together into one whole, where I fulfill him and he becomes fulfilled. In what does he become fulfilled? In his desire. His desire in relation to mine is like Malchut in relation to Zeir Anpin. I am like the Creator, and he—the creation. That is what my work is.

Thus, “love” is the relationship between the Creator and creation. Only this is love—the creation’s attitude to the Creator. If I can build this kind of attitude to others, or in other words, if I acquire the quality of the Creator, the quality of bestowal, and by means of it I relate to the neighbor’s desire just like the Creator does, it turns out that the Creator is inside of me, and I make the necessary action in relation to the neighbor. This means that I love the neighbor.

We don’t have the right to use the word “love” in any other sense, context, or case. Otherwise we will confuse it with our “love of fish.”

We are talking about the extent to which the Creator, the quality of bestowal, dresses into me. First of all we have to carry out the principle, “Do not do to another what you yourself hate.” That is how I become neutral. After that, I have to acquire his desire instead of my own. Another person’s desire becomes more important for me and therefore he becomes higher than me. I am ready to do everything for him, just like I would for my sick child in our world. I am entirely “short-circuited” on his desire; it is what makes me act.

That is exactly why I am similar to the Creator, like Zeir Anpin who receives a request from Malchut. The more another person’s desire is able to activate me to bestow, the higher I am than him. This is love. Do you see how different this is from our current notions?

The more I can bestow to another person, the more I provide him with the Light of correction. After all, there is mutual guarantee between us. I do not fill his egoistic desire, but I reveal inside of him the desire to be in one system with me so the Shechina would reign between us. So what should I provide for him? I give him my support of the mutual guarantee, which he also provides for me by revealing it in his desire. This is love.

No one is indulging the other’s egoism. I don’t reveal the egoistic desire in the other person, but the desire for mutual support in order to reveal the Creator in the relationship between us. The Creator cannot be revealed in any individual or just in my attitude to another person, unless it’s fortified by the same attitude from him. Love does not work in one direction. It is a two way street. It requires a connecting net through which impulses of bestowal are flowing, a net permeated by feelings of love, relationships of mutual guarantee and mutuality by which we strengthen one another.

In the meantime, egoism remains below, without making any calculations to fulfill it. After all, we rise above it, connected by our mutual intention for the sake of bestowal. And when it reaches a specific level of unity, creating a net above us, then we reveal the Creator, the mutual quality of bestowal and love between us.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/20/11, “Matan Torah (The Giving of the Torah)”

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Lo Lishma means that I’m aware of the fact that I exist in egoism rather than bestowal. I strive to achieve bestowal, Lishma, with all my might, but I’m yet unable to do it and must make a calculation in my own interest. The difference I see between my actual and desired states is called my Lo Lishma.

Suppose you hand me an envelope, returning a loan of one thousand dollars. If I take the envelope without checking what’s inside, this is called “below reason.” That is, I take you at your word from the outset and don’t involve any reason. If I check it, see exactly one thousand dollars, and accept the repayment, this is called “within reason.”

However, if I open the envelope, count the money, and see that it’s short by a certain amount, but nonetheless accept it as full repayment of the loan, to the measure of the missing sum, I work in faith above reason.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/19/2011, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Many friends exerted themselves a lot before the Moscow convention. The importance of the goal was high. What did we lack? What should we, as a group, realize now at the new level?

Answer: In other words, you would like to say that the convention was not successful because we did not reveal in ourselves the property of bestowal. However, we could not achieve it in one go. It is impossible. A child cannot skip a few years of his growth.

Development is a sequential, step-by-step process. Not having realized a certain Reshimo (informational record), you cannot start realizing the next one. You simply will not have the tools in the mind and feelings to develop further.

We have done a great job; we advanced in our perception powerfully and intensively. And now, after the convention, we will go through the process of realizing it—perhaps not altogether pleasantly, but necessary.

Practically, the work that such a convention performs in you is equivalent to half a year of intensive studies. How many people who attended the convention study normally so intensely? We “propelled” them and those who were with us around the world at least six months forward. Such gatherings are very effective, and I am in favor of organizing them as often as possible. I am ready to give all I have got for it.

Naturally, after the convention, the stage of realization comes: “What have we achieved?” Here, a person should proceed to analyze the entire method with the help of articles and studies. He has to re-evaluate it again.

After the convention, many people begin to analyze the method of Kabbalah in general: “What for? Why? How? Is it correct or not? Is it a tale or a real method of my transformation in accordance with general Nature?” These are very useful, necessary, and essential processes that must occur in each of us.

Kabbalah makes you a human, not a robot, not a “half-believer” or mystic, but a researcher. Exploring yourself, you perceive the world and the Creator because all of it is within you. The entire process in based on self-knowledge because a person exists and nothing more.

Each of us has a sense of his “Self” and his world. Now, I feel you, the hall where we are, the planet, the Universe, and all of it happens within me; this picture has been created within me. How can it be changed? How can it be investigated? Is it truly like this? Or is this world presented to us as ethereal, transient, and changing? I perceive everything through the changes of my own properties.

That is why it is impossible to skip developmental stages. I must form them within myself. I have to be my own judge, researcher, and analyst. Essentially, I have to become the Creator of myself. Kabbalah develops in you the need to understand absolutely everything, who and what you are, and to create out of yourself an absolute, perfect form that will be called “the Creator.”

This is long and hard work, but namely it is intended for every human being. Do not think that someone living in a jungle is incapable of such work. He will be included in it because he will have a Kli, desire, shared with others, common thoughts and feelings. Whatever he lacks he will obtain from others.

Had we not evolved under the influence of our environment, we would have remained little “animals.” It is namely the environment that develops us and gives us the missing qualities, desires, intentions. Thus, there is no person in the world whose environment would not include the entire humanity. Anyone can reach the level of anyone of us, no matter how primitive he is.

The entire process of self-knowledge and creating in oneself the highest property should proceed in this manner, step by step. On one hand, this process is individual because a person raises himself, and on the other, it is seemingly a group process. However, in reality, there is neither group nor humanity, but only your immediate part rejected by your egoism and perceived by you as alien.

When you work on yourself, wishing to gradually bring this part closer to you, to accept it as your own, you work against your innate egoism. And you turn it into the force of connection instead of the force of rejection of the seemingly “external” part, of humanity.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson from Moscow 6/16/2011, Writings of Rabash

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All the articles from the book of Shamati are intended to attune one to the right attitude towards himself (his inner abilities, aptitudes, forces, and qualities) and towards everything outside of him (people, society, the group, the teacher, the Creator, and nature) so that one understands how he changes, through what, and how he should act to bring himself to the perfect state. Our problem is that on one hand, there is nothing we can do ourselves because we are just the desire to be fulfilled, the will to enjoy.

On the other hand, if we cannot do anything ourselves and represent only one desire created opposite to the Creator, to the Light, then how can we ask to change ourselves, to request to be changed, and to demand action on their own or through or through other systems?

In other words, we are in dual position. On one hand, I cannot do anything myself. On the other, I must bring myself to the point where my request, my desire, will cause such an influence on me that I will be changed. This particular point is very difficult for us. There, a person does not correctly understand his interaction with the upper force that created him.

That is, I have to reach a state where I feel my complete inability to correct myself, where I realize and understand that my correction can be done only under the influence of the external force. Conversely, this external force that exists outside of me is constant, and I cannot affect it any way. It is absolute. Rather, I can affect myself by bringing myself under its influence namely by my request.

My request is my action when I change my attitude towards this upper force and thereby change its influence on me, and it corrects me. Hence, essentially, the work happens inside a person and depends on his desires, on his intention, and its force and direction. A person exists in an absolute, perfect, unchanging field. But the work is done precisely by this field acting on a person. And he brings himself under the influence of this field.

From the point of view of the desire to be corrected, a person is an active element. And from the point of view of the correction of a person himself, he is passive: He is corrected by the Light that exists outside him, surrounds him, and is invariable. It is possible to talk about this state a great deal, but it has to be gradually formed in us as a defined, precise, internal state of me and the Light, the Creator.

Baal HaSulam’s article “Lishma Is an Awakening from Above, and Why Do We Need an Awakening from Below” is one of those articles that talks about the correct alignment of a person with the Creator, with the upper Light. A person means our desire: how it can be changed if it places itself correctly under the influence of the Light.

The property of bestowal that we can reach and to which we are gradually getting closer under the influence of the Light is called “Lishma” or “for His sake.”  And its opposite property is called “Lo Lishma” or “not for His sake,” meaning for oneself.

Desires appear in us independently from us; we cannot regulate them, but we can regulate our intention: What we want in every moment of time, what we aspire to.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson from Moscow 6/15/11, Shamati #5

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Bina grows and gains strength due to its desire to bestow, to resemble the Creator, Keter, whereas Malchut grows, due to its desire to receive even more Light of Hochma than expands to it from the Creator. After all, it desires to bestow to Him, which means it is supposed to receive from Him more as well! This is what determines how much it bestows.

The fulfillment the Creator initially gives to Malchut, which remains in it in the world of Infinity before it begins to work, is a very basic, “still” level, Nefesh de Nefesh. This was Malchut of Infinity before any restrictions since the creature was unable to experience more. But further on, the creature begins to think about how to restrict itself, how to cover itself with an anti-egoistic screen, and how to come to the Host with it and say: “Give me more Light for I wish to give more to You!”

In fact, the Host only wishes for the creature to receive from Him since it brings Him contentment. And the creature brings forth even stronger desire. “He created me a tiny insect, but I wish to offer Him desires of Infinite magnitude and let Him fulfill them because I wish to delight Him.”

Hence, I bring new desire to Him. In Malchut of Infinity before the restriction, I had only one gram of desire, a still, barely glimmering desire in the Light of Nefesh de Nefesh. In comparison to it, in the end of correction I can bring desire that is 620 (Tarach) times greater and that has the Light of NRNHY (Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama, Haya, Yechida). We have no means to even measure how much more powerful this Light is.

But why am I doing this all? I wish to bring enormous vessels (desires) to the Host so that He may fill them up and rejoice. I delight when He is pleased, while He enjoys when He fulfills and delights me. We fulfill each other. And I needn’t be embarrassed now that I have such gigantic desires, which I am asking Him to fulfill. I am certain that I am doing so solely in order to delight Him, and “He is the joy of my heart.”
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/30/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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