Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, “Make Yourself A Rav, Buy Yourself A Friend”
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The Book of Zohar – Selections, Chapter “BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent),” Item 163
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Rav Yehuda Ashlag, “Beit Shaar HaKavanot,” Lesson 9
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Baal HaSulam, “600,000 Souls,” Lesson 3
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Question: Can a person who just got introduced to Kabbalah and arrives at the convention for the first time connect to it?
Answer: It doesn’t matter at what level a person is; he enters the collective field and feels that it is good. He will feel that it brings warmth, confidence, and protection. He will probably get an answer to some of life’s questions, and it will help him to solve problems within himself and at home.
The Upper Light gets revealed in the connection of people, it fills all cavities and flaws. Hence, everyone can feel that it is worthwhile to participate in unification. In the measure of one’s participation, the person will be able to connect to the Light, the wisdom of Kabbalah, and improve his life.
The wisdom of Kabbalah, contrary to religions, doesn’t claim that a person has to suffer. On the contrary, one should connect to the right environment (and he doesn’t even need to exert much effort to do so), and then he will start ascending on the beam of light.
All problems are solely from the lack of the Light in our life! And if we draw it to ourselves, we won’t feel any lack or serious problems: troubles, misfortunes, pain, and wars. Everything depends solely on the impact of the Light on our world.
It takes only a few minutes for a person to feel what a special place he has entered. Suppose he comes to the gathering, a cultural program: People sing, dance, and he may want to participate. If not, he could simply watch. He will feel warmth and lack of any personal pressure. So I don’t think that someone wouldn’t enjoy it.
People like this kind of atmosphere, even if they walked in accidentally, without seeking spirituality. After all, life usually doesn’t spoil us with such good moments, and people truly miss that.
[24155]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/18/10, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”
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On the spiritual path, there are two extremely serious obstacles or two questions raised by the Pharaoh himself:
1. “Who is this Creator that I should listen to Him?” In other words, what is so important which is hidden in the property of bestowal for me to bow to it?
In fact, this rebellion of our nature helps us because by overcoming it, we can keep exalting the importance of bestowal over reception in our eyes. The growing egoism continuously denies the importance of bestowal, and we have to keep strengthening our connection with the group so that under its influence, we start aspiring to the realization of the properties of bestowal within ourselves again.
2. "What is there for you in this work?” Egoism shows us that we are weak and incapable of achieving what we desire. “What do you have to do with it? Your goal may be beautiful, but who are you to reach it?”
When we are overtaken by these two weaknesses, it should be understood that a person can’t break free from imprisonment by himself. The only chance to do so is for the friends to come and save him. I will find strength to advance only in the group, in the connection between us. There, I reveal my nature and realize that it lacks bestowal.
Then, I experience distress between the two poles: On one side, there is the importance of bestowal and on the other, my pettiness. And I acquire both these factors thanks to the environment.
Now everything is organized correctly: I am low, the goal is exalted and profound, and I have the means to reach it. At this point, there comes a feeling of certainty that we call the Arvut (mutual guarantee). After all, I know that through the group, I will receive all the necessary strength.
How do I know this? In fact, the correct environment is a structure created by the Creator and infused with His attribute. Therefore, if we draw closer to each other through the bonds of love, then bestowal begins to rule among us.
It turns out that in reality, I am not using the power of the group, but the property of bestowal that is hidden in our interconnection. It doesn’t belong to any one individually for it is the force of the Creator, which becomes revealed between us. This particular force is the one that does all the work.
Hence, the Pharaoh’s heart lies in the hands of the Creator. The Pharaoh is the force of reception created by the Creator for us to build the form of bestowal exactly above it.
[24164]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/20, “He Who Strengthens His Heart”
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The further we advance, the more confusing and unpredictable the world becomes. We see the presence of a process, but we do not understand where it is leading.
Studies show that our reality is situated in one quality: the desire to receive or to enjoy. All the calculations on all levels are conducted only on the basis of personal gain. Even bestowal is used with the goal of receiving. We lack the energy for an action that is not directed at our own benefit. So what should we do?
Kabbalists tell us that there is another, opposite reality which is governed by an all-encompassing force of creation. We can call it Nature or the Creator; it is the same thing. We are talking about an absolute, universal quality of bestowal. We can rise from the degree of reception to the degree of bestowal only with the help of this global all-inclusive force which created all of reality. We can evoke an influence on us through our actions so that this force would change our nature.
These actions are simple: We try to unite, to imagine ourselves in mutual bestowal, and along with this, we study the laws of the reality that is altogether concealed from us. Due to our efforts and the studies, we seemingly draw ourselves closer to the quality of bestowal or, on the contrary, attract it to us so that it influences and changes us.
Thereby, we evoke the joining of qualities while swaying on the waves of altering sensations. Sometimes, we feel good from achieving nearness to bestowal and see that we are moving forward. At other times, to the contrary, we feel poorly from this.
This is how we walk: sometimes with the right foot, sometimes with the left, sometimes with the growth of bestowal, and other times, with the growth of reception. If we don’t leave the method, the reception is revealed in us to the point of hatred, and love is revealed above it more and more until all the evil that is instilled in us and all the goodness that we can attract from the quality of bestowal are revealed.
Then, we create the right combination of these qualities: the middle line. We unify two worlds within us and exist in them both, constantly elevating the force of bestowal over the force of reception. This is called “receiving for the sake of mutual bestowal.”
[24171]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/19/10, “He Who Strengthens His Heart”
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We have to prepare for the Convention. Some people are coming there completely ready; they already know that at the Convention we have to receive forces in order to continue the path.
There’s life after the Convention as well. We will still have to make many corrections inside us and in the world. Therefore the Convention offers us the opportunity to do inner work. Along with the inspiration, people conduct an analysis: “Right now I am inspired, I ascend above myself with the help of the group that influences me. The group is a factor of the goal’s importance and ascent above myself…”Some people perceive what is happening precisely in this way.
Others aren’t ready for this approach yet. They lose their heads, join the common flow, and aren’t aware of the situation. This is also a good thing: They will be inspired and the analysis might come later on.
At the end of the day everyone will benefit greatly from the Convention, even the participants that don’t really know why they came. We are also inviting all those who were with us at some point in time and who left for various reasons. Try to come to the Convention, to spend some time with us, and to check yourself once again.
Life often gives us situations where a person is “taken out of the game” and has to overcome and fight obstacles. However, leaving the spiritual path is unacceptable under any circumstances.
Those who have left now have the opportunity to come back, and I very much advise them to do so. I have seen how people who came back attained great results.
[24910]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10, “All of Israel Have A Part in the Next World”
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Question: How should we transfer the inspiration of the Convention to the following period of descent?
Answer: If we prepare well during the period of the Convention by strengthening the connection between us, then this connection will help us immediately attach the ascents to the descents.
We really do have the opportunity not to fall. To achieve this we have to prepare at the Convention in such a way that afterwards we won’t perceive the burdening of the heart and desires as evil, but as a means and an opportunity to ascend.
We have reached a special state – a great unity of people who are different, foreign, and distant from each other. In essence, we are all of Babylon, yet at the same time we are able to create a connection where we can use the example of unity we will receive at the Convention and then constantly remain in it.
We must only maintain the same inspiration, the same connection, and the same importance of the goal, holding on to the example we received, holding on to the force we attracted during the unity. Then we won’t have any problem rising up the spiritual degrees.
Unity fills us with energy and the realization of the goal’s greatness and importance. We have to act in a way that will prevent the subsequent states from becoming descents into darkness. We must see them as desirable and necessary ahead of time, according to the principle, “I awaken the dawn instead of the dawn awakening me.”
We await the darkness just as the Light because it offers us the chance to ascend.
[24916]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10, “All of Israel Have A Part in the Next World”
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During a descent, a state of darkness, helplessness, and separation from the Creator, the most important thing is to try to combine all the means correctly. In a descent a person has to build everything just like it happened to him during an ascent, when the Creator gave him a clear example. Then the two of them will be equal.
The Creator gives a person understanding, sensation, closeness, adhesion, the right mood, confidence, faith, the ability to bestow, the impulse, and the willingness to bestow. When a person feels all of this during an ascent, he must check his feelings very well so that he doesn’t just enjoy, but also performs a constant analysis of the situation.
Now this state came from the Creator as an example, and later, in a descent, a person will have to understand that the Creator has left him, similar to how an adult leaves a child so the child would do something on his own. It is time for the little one to recreate what he saw.
That is how we learn to keep the covenant we took upon ourselves during an ascent. Now, in a descent, we understand that it is for our own good. This state will enable us to create conditions of being independent of our sensations and thus we will reveal all the means to come to the Light. We just need to make our own efforts.
We never succeed without the Creator’s help, yet we act independently because we ourselves use all the means He has given to us. That is how creation makes itself equal to the Creator.
[24925]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10, “All of Israel Have A Part in the Next World”
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Kabbalah Moments: Descent
Now, in the last days before the Convention, we have to be ready for the disturbances to grow stronger from all sides and we have to strengthen each other. We have to try to explain that there is no way out and movement forward is only possible by becoming stronger above the mind and feeling, like a “mule under a yoke and a donkey under a load,” meaning only by making efforts, without using our mind and feelings.
We have to try to receive such a great common force of unity from the group that inside it the Creator will dwell, “inside His nation.” That is how we will ascend!
Unlike all religions and “spiritual practices,” in Kabbalah we do not destroy egoism. Rather, we desire its development and accumulate the challenges it presents because we ascend above them.
Therefore, let every person come with his entire load of egoism no matter what it is. Precisely by using it as a basis, we have to create a connection with each other. Then instead of a short circuit that we get when there is no opposition between us, we will get a result by ascending above the opposition.
Therefore, the remaining time is very intense and critical, when we are being thrown into polar directions: between good and evil, confusion and clarity. We have to rejoice about the fact that we have achieved these states; the most important thing is not to remain indifferent.
And if a person finally comes to the Convention after going through all of this whirlpool, then he has something to come with! Then we will correct everything else together!
[24956]
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/26/10, “600,000 Souls”
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We begin our spiritual path once we acquire a relatively large egoistic desire following millennia of development, notably in this incarnation thanks to the point in the heart. Because of this point, the desire to receive develops faster and more “aggressively,” demanding more as it does. The point drives the desire in an unclear direction so it raises its head and increases its demands from this world.
Developing within the space of our world without the point in the heart, it belonged to the desires of the masses, but now, the spiritual impulse is leading it somewhere else entirely. We continue to develop egoistically, but our ego has grown and now wishes to “devour” all of reality, corporeal as well as spiritual.
With these two forces, man begins his spiritual search until he comes to the group and finds the method of correction. If he utilizes this method correctly by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah with the intention of using the environment to draw the Light, he embarks upon a road of spiritual development. In this process, man’s ego is combined with his aspiration for bestowal, which he derives from the environment. Gradually, a demand grows in his heart, and the Light cultivates it.
[24300]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/21/10, “I Am the First and I Am the Last”
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