Question: I try to think about our unification, the connection between us all the time, especially during the reading of The Zohar. But how does the Light work on me when I attempt to exert these efforts? What changes does it perform in me?

Answer: The Light is at absolute rest, it does not do anything with you. You perform all the changes. Can you use the Light? Do it! If not, then don’t. It’s similar to electricity: Is it connected to an electric outlet? If so, use it! How? Any way you want! You can use it to run a refrigerator, a heater, anything you want.

How does the Light affect you? It doesn’t. You elicit this action from it.

It is said: "I did not change my HaVaYaH (the plan of creation)," which means that the Creator is at absolute rest. This is why the Light does not do anything! You perform everything with your own actions; you transfer yourself to the next state. And if we say: "Let the Light work" or "the Light does this or that," we simply ascribe our actions to it.

We activate the law, and it works. The law is in action; its formula is known. It exists beyond us and is called "the law of the similarity of properties of the Lights and desires (Kelim) or the "law of balance."

There are no actions from the side of the Light. The Light carried out the only action: It created the desire to receive pleasure, "existence from absence." And by the way, it’s not the Light we are talking about.

And the desire to enjoy, existing in that Light as created from "absence," changes all the time. All the transformations of properties, the development by the four phases, etc. that we discuss occur only relative to that desire, the creature. All of it is the changes of the desire to receive pleasure inside the constant Light.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/24/11, The Book of Zohar

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The difficulty lies in the understanding that the group, the environment, is not a temporary setting that won’t be necessary after a while. The group never disappears, and it is impossible to gain spiritual fulfillment by any other means. From these strangers, people I once resented, from their internal world, I have to construct my own soul.

And instead of seeing their faces, personalities, and behavior, I must see only their internal desires so that I build a “spiritual body” from them, which I could bestow to and get inspired by. And if we do our mutual work in this manner, we will provide the guarantee, a sensation of support, the forces for development and bestowal for everyone.

Then, you will feel as though you are protected from evil in this group, as if you are in “Noah’s Ark.” We often find such “sanctuaries” along our path. It is similar to the mother’s womb where we develop in stages: embryo-feeding-maturity (Ibur–Yenika–Mochin), until we are born on a new spiritual degree, in the new world.

This is how we view the group until our connection with it is so strong that we begin receiving the Light through it, the properties for our new development, as in Noah’s Ark, the mother’s womb. And later on, we are born and start developing a connection with this environment as with the Upper Mother (Ima Ilaa): We receive through it the influence of Aba ve-Ima and even higher.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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Material development of man comes to a halt and frees space for a new stage of evolution.

Today all spheres of our lives are permeated with despair. It has come to a point where we don’t know what to do with our children. After all, we brought them into this world for a good life, but this is not what we see approaching in the future.

Why should a person harness himself to a family life if it doesn’t bring him any positive changes? There should be a reason for taking on such a heavy burden.

Being tied to a particular place or a country is becoming a thing of the past. People simply want a better life, and they are ready to go wherever they can find it. This is how we break down all the borders, limitations, and the old “wrappings,” in which we developed for thousands of years.

In the past it was clear to a person that he belonged to a certain nation, place, and culture, that he was attached to his family and to everything that represented life’s foundation at that time. From generation to generation fathers taught their children a profession: A son of a blacksmith eventually became a blacksmith, and a son of a shepherd became a shepherd. A young man knew that he would marry a girl from a nearby village, and life proceeded according to these rules.

Today everything has changed. People worldwide are abandoning old rules. Our egoism, our inner desires, and our consciousness are quickly transforming, only we ourselves don’t know what they’re transforming into.

We are led by our desire for fulfillment, and this desire is destroying all barriers that used to keep us within the generally accepted boundaries. In our time nothing is generally accepted or obvious. Everything is unsteady and impermanent. Whatever is convenient at the moment is considered right.

People have risen above the limitations in which they existed throughout history. In the heights of this process we don’t realize the scale of changes that are taking place. The borders have been erased and people are ready to feel at home in any given country. Whether we want it or not, the earth is becoming a common territory. And even though we are at the beginning of this new trend, it is nonetheless irreversible.

Along with this process we are revealing a new kind of emptiness which can’t be filled regardless of where we live or what we do. Our elevation above old limitations and our readiness for new forms of development don’t allow us to fulfill our growing desire. It’s this desire that elevated us above the old world and threw us right into the storm of changes. It demands the kind of fulfillment that can’t be found anywhere.

Humanity is in crisis: It will either find a new form of fulfillment or it will have to calm itself down with alcohol, drugs, and antidepressants. Actually, this is already happening on an ever-increasing scale. But this isn’t a solution, and sooner or later (better sooner) we’ll realize that it’s time to replace material fulfillment with the spiritual one.
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From the 4thpart of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11 on The Principles of Global Education

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Question: What does it mean to penetrate into the integral system of souls that The Zohar talks about?

Answer: It can’t be explained in words. If we could get inside this system, we would experience spiritual phenomena behind The Zohar’s words and feel what every word signifies. We would be able to recognize all of these properties and desires. We would understand why they have such appellations and are defined by these kinds of relationships between them. Everything would become clear.

However, all of this unfolds from the inner vision of the system. The souls are connected with one another in a single organism, in mutual support, guarantee, partnership, and the annulment of each soul before all to a greater or lesser degree, at all possible levels, while every soul still functions above its ego.

In the system where we are connected with each other at the internal level, we unite over our egoism. In this case, you get to see the entire system. At the same time, you are also able to see this world as more external in relation to the internal system since this world remains in egoism and is controlled by it.

In the spiritual system, we are motivated by the aspiration toward oneness while in this world, we are ruled by the inclination toward separatism, withdrawal from each other, desire for personal power, and vain pride. They are two opposing forces.

In this world, I cancel others and exalt myself, whereas in the internal system, I annul myself and exalt the others. That’s the tendency, and this is why both of these systems seem to differ so much.

To the degree that a person gets involved in the internal system, he gets to see the connections between all souls. He feels how everything is completely harmonized and the life force, the mutual bestowal that forms billions of channels between the souls, circulates between them, while this multitude of luminous channels turns into the perfect Light that fills the relationships between all souls.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011, The Book of Zohar

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Lesson on Topic “Preparation for the WE Convention,” “There Is Indeed Only One Soul,” Lesson 4
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The Book of Zohar — Selections, Chapter “Yitro (Jethro),” “You Shall Not Have,” Item 415, Lesson 8
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Talmud Eser Sefirot 3, Part 9, Lesson 14
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Topic: The Principles of Global Education, Lesson 7
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The final result of our work is the establishment of the connection with the environment which becomes wider and stronger all the time, and this strengthens our bond. In the beginning I am just like a drop of semen that attaches itself to the wall of the womb. Then I develop by annulling my egoistic desire at the degrees of embryo-nurturing-adulthood of the first phase, that of an embryo. This is called the development in the three sections of the spiritual womb, whereby I rise from one section to the other.

Then I undergo the spiritual birth, meaning that I establish a new type of connection with the environment and begin to interact with the group consciously. I already check and analyze our relationships, try to make them more effective, as much as I am able to reveal my environment.

Indeed, the environment is always a degree higher than me. Depending on the stage of my development, it is either the mother’s womb for me, or the Mother (Ima), or the Mother and the Father (Abba ve Ima), or Arich Anpin. This is how I discover all the spiritual systems described in The Study of the Ten Sefirot, which become revealed in my increasingly stronger connection with the group.

And later I will reveal that it’s not just my current friends: The souls of the great Kabbalists of all generations also participate in the same group, who have already corrected themselves and join the same system, encircling us.

And if I previously judged everything “according to my own flaws,” now, as I advance, I value this group increasingly more. At each degree I undergo all the stages: embryo-nurturing-adulthood, that is, I first develop my upper part, GE, realizing my Reshimo (spiritual gene), and then AHP, until I complete my correction.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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We live at the time when the entire world is entering the phase of spiritual development. And the group we are building is like the Noah’s Ark, our common mother, where we could all join in and grow ourselves. That is, the group will be the mother’s womb for the entire humanity: It is Shechina which we build between us.

The same place will accept us when we will be “exiled” from the mother’s womb and will be born. And by bringing it ever new “garments” of the Light of Hassadim (Mercy) and corrections, we will raise it higher and higher, till the very end of correction, until it will turn into the bride ready to enter the wedding canopy (Chuppah) with the Creator.

Hence, the group relative to each person and also the entire humanity is that same place which is always a step higher than us. This is the upper spiritual object, in relation to which we constantly reveal our next, higher degrees—in the extent that we are able to rise above our ego.

Egoism remains a force that separates and therefore helps us. After all, by overcoming the ego in particular, we are able to establish a tighter connection with our environment: or like an embryo with the womb, or like a nurtured baby, or like a grown-up who receives the Light for the sake of bestowal.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 Preparation for the WE! Convention

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Question: If the matter of creation is the receiving desire, what does it mean to bestow in order to bestow? Where is the work with desire?

Answer: The truth of the matter is that the receiving desire itself works for the sake of bestowal. It supports a fellow human being, helps him, and performs various actions in relation to him.

In general, to understand bestowal for the sake of bestowal, it’s necessary to understand what reception for the sake of bestowal is. It means that I work with my receiving desires so as to use them to grow a fellow human being and perform the actions of bestowal upon him, similar to how Bina works in its AHP.

I include the receiving desires of the other into my own and fill him with everything he demands. And what he demands is Infinity. Then, with my help his desires reach an infinite magnitude, while the Lights coming to him through me grow to the infinite size of NRNHY. This is how I work, receiving in order to bestow: I make sure to give the other everything necessary, utilizing all of my abilities for this purpose and totally ignoring my own profit.

However, for this I need the upper force absent in my nature. My inborn nature lets me perform only the actions that promise me a personal benefit, whereas the actions of bestowal are totally selfless and do not benefit my receiving desires in any way. This is why I can’t perform them unless I receive the strength from the upper dimension, that of bestowal.

Hence, I incorporate the needs of the other into my desires and then through my desires I fulfill him. In general, we are talking about the desires which relate to our interconnection since the spiritual work is performed at the level of unification of the souls where we fill ourselves with the upper Lights.

So, there is an additional option: not to engage my receiving desires, but only pass all goodness from myself to the other, to participate in his fulfillment, but not with my own desires. This is pure bestowal. As a rule, these actions forestall mutual bestowal. They correct our unification. Thanks to them we annul our egoism in order to rise above it to unity. And unity itself is activated by the direct use of our receiving desires.

In this way, bestowal for the sake of bestowal is an intermediate, small, weak, “poor” state. But we have no choice: We need to undergo it since we thereby clean our desires and rise above our egoistic qualities. Without it, it’s impossible to start working with them. First of all, we have to “clean them up,” meaning to fill them with the Light of Hassadim (Mercy).
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011 on The Principles of Global Education

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Question: Until we started studying the world of Atzilut in Part 9, Talmud Eser Sefirot (TES), it seemed to me that I understood the flow of the material. But in this part, I understand absolutely nothing. Can you tell in general terms what is happening there?

Answer: I can tell what is happening with you, why you don’t understand anything. It’s because you have no relation to it.

There are several levels of perceiving the study material: “I don’t know,” “I’m not familiar with,” “I don’t understand,” and “I’m unable to understand.” The latter is because your mind does not correspond to the mind of the book.

If this were written in Chinese and you didn’t understand the language, it would be one thing. If it depended on your education level and you didn’t comprehend certain formulas or basic definitions needed to master the material, you would still have something to study.

However, here you can study as much as you want, year after year, and you nevertheless won’t understand anything until your Kelim (vessels, desires)  become at least somewhat similar to the desires described in the book. When each word will echo with an inner change within you, you will start comprehending what is being described here.

You may ask: “But didn’t I understand something in the first three parts of TES?” No, you didn’t. The three parts in question describe the acts of absolute bestowal that are so distant from and opposite to you that this opposition gives you the illusion of understanding. In reality, you interpret them completely incorrectly.

It’s easy to draw a Kli (vessel), the Light, and the screen in the middle, the arrows pointing in different directions, the percentage of the Light received or given away. But it’s impossible to imagine this action for real. However, it is so inaccessible and opposite to us that it makes us think that we understand.

Meanwhile, the actions described in Part 9 of TES are very close to us. The moment you have at least one ounce of the desire to bestow, you will enter a similar act.

Hence you see that you don’t understand. Your mind has to become similar to the spiritual one—then the connection will appear and you will be able to comprehend. This is the only way!
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/2011, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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