Only a person has freewill because he or she can use an external factor that allows them to choose the direction of their development. Imagine that a grain of wheat would have the opportunity to choose how to grow into a stalk of ten grains and decide which grains. Wheat cannot choose, but we can, although we are in the same state. But we have the opportunity to turn to the special factor that will develop us, and this is called our freewill.

If there is no freedom of choice, then only wheat and nothing else can grow from your grain of wheat. However, we have the opportunity to become a human being due to an external factor. Therefore, we need to find what this external factor is, what it can do, and how can we awaken it? Also, we need to understand why we need this external factor because it goes against all of our desires, against our nature. It turns out that we need to convince ourselves, and this requires an environment that will help us overcome all difficulties and prove that this is a worthwhile endeavor. It is very difficult to acquire freedom.¹

External factors make a huge impact on a person: we pass on our thoughts, desires, aspirations, goals, and values to other people, and we receive the same from them. Humanity thus develops under the influence of society. Particularly noticeable is the influence of the media that destroys a person.

An external factor cannot affect a person directly, but indirectly, in a roundabout way; it has a very serious effect.²
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/2/20, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Freedom”
1 Minute 34:40
2 Minute 38:12

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Newspaper “The Nation” 

Writings of Baal HaSulam, Shamati 69, “First Will Be the Correction of the World”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Peace in the World” 

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You must be glad that you see your shortcomings against the background of the ten. I am looking for how I differ from the ten, from the friends, and what I need to fix in order to become equal to them. I always discover what I am lacking to become as one friend or another, and “the envy of the sages increases wisdom” because there is something to strive for and something to ask for. So, we all work until our requests turn into real prayer.¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/19, “The Conditions for Raising Oneself Above One’s Circle”

¹ Minute 1:10

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Jealousy And Envy Are Unique To Man
Why Should I Correct Myself?

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “”The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism,” Chapter 9

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 1 

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We still can not tear ourselves away from our desire to enjoy, we have not despaired, and have not cried out from this work in slavery to the Pharaoh. We need to see that we are on the side of egoism in front of an abyss, on the other side of this is freedom from Pharaoh, from thinking about myself, from the constant search for my own benefit. When we realize that we are not able to jump over this abyss, then we will cry out. We need to combine all our efforts in order to feel this common despair.

When we feel that the common egoism keeps us in slavery, prevents us from leaving, and when we want to jump over the abyss and run away from the Pharaoh to become free people and not slaves of egoism, then we will scream. And this cry itself is already liberation.¹

Our entire Bnei Baruch world group belongs to that part of the common soul that is now receiving an awakening by the general illumination in the world. Therefore, we gathered and organized a group wishing to reveal the Creator. The Creator brings a person into a group, puts one’s hand on the good fortune, and then the choice is mine: to choose it or not, to follow the path of light or the path of suffering.

We all have one destiny because through our actions in the group we awaken a common spark that should be revealed in our connection with each other as the feeling of the upper force. This feeling is getting closer because with each passing day we are increasingly fulfilling the conditions necessary to feel the Creator together.

It is truly a miracle that happens to us because such a state, such work, has not existed for thousands of years! And although we make small corrections, moving gradually with tiny steps, this is a general correction at the very foundation of creation as opposed to a particular correction of an individual. There are times when individuals start to feel a little spiritual awakening, but this is not a correction. We live in the era of the Messiah, and according to the demand of the time, we must lead a general correction, and pass it on to the people of Israel and all humanity.

This is a much more difficult and gradual path compared to the individual work of the past generations of Kabbalists, but it leads to a genuine correction of creation, of Adam HaRishon. As we advance, we will see how we shall realize the goal of creation.²

The mutual guarantee (Arvut) is the key to success; nothing else is needed. This is the only thing missing in the system of Adam HaRishon in order to connect it back after the breakage. All the parts of the soul are already there, like engine parts that need only to be assembled. The correct order of connection and communication between us is called mutual guarantee. We only need to bring all the details closer to each other and introduce them into the common work. It has nothing to do with the material itself; it is only necessary to establish connections within it.

Everything is resolved in thought. The Creator allows us again and again to feel our separation more and more, and we again try to unite and achieve unity. So, we gradually advance until we receive the full measure.³
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/10/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

¹ Minute 8:20
² Minute 19:30
³ Minute 23:10

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “”The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism,” Chapter 8

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” 

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Mutual guarantee (Arvut) is the general law of creation, as well as the particular law of any human being. If we constantly check ourselves for compliance with this law, we will not be mistaken and will advance to the goal of creation in the shortest possible way. If I stop checking myself for mutual guarantee, I will immediately stumble, fall, or lose the way, and I will have to return to the connection of mutual guarantee again to be sure that I am moving in the right direction. To the extent I feel a lack of mutual guarantee in myself and make an effort to achieve it, pray, and include myself in the group, I advance and elevate myself from the path of suffering to the path of light.

The law of mutual guarantee and my attitude to unification determines all my advancement and the extent to which my path will be right and straight without looping and falling. A fall becomes as fast as the pinch of the devil, just one second is enough to wake up and take a step forward. I fall and wake up, fall and wake up, with great speed, thousands of times daily.

Therefore, one must feel how the law of mutual guarantee operates within the whole of creation right now. We exist in the corrected system even now, but we simply cannot see it because we judge from our flaws; therefore, we see the system as corrupted. Each time, we must see the system more and more corrected by becoming more and more included in mutual guarantee, and this is all our work.

The test is how much I humble myself in front of society. If the group has accepted some condition for its advancement, I can agree with it or not; but until I share the opinion of the group, I will not fulfill the law of mutual guarantee, and therefore will not be directed to spirituality, to the purpose of creation, to the goal of life, to the Creator who is in the center of the group. Therefore, I must constantly check to what extent I agree with the group, with the teacher, with what the Kabbalists write, and in this way direct myself toward correction more accurately. In essence, this is the correction.

Mutual guarantee is the iron law of the spiritual system. It is realized in us at every moment, each time returning us to bestowal, to faith above reason, in direction toward the goal, forcing us to include ourselves in the group and humble ourselves before the ten. All this is included in the law of mutual guarantee. Mutual guarantee is the common name for the total of the conditions we must fulfill in order to become one man (Adam) in the system of Adam HaRishon.¹

Bestowing to a person is more important than directly bestowing to the Creator. Love for one’s neighbor as for oneself precedes the love for the Creator. Love for the Creator arises to the extent that we realize love for a neighbor, it comes from the upper light that fills the corrected Kelim. It turns out that all our work is to fill the created beings.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/16/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”

¹ Minute 0:55
² Minute 42:17

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The strength of connection within a ten is measured by the kind of disturbances we are able to connect. The egoism, which separates us and arouses hatred toward each other, is revealed, and we begin to unite on top of it. But mutual rejection remains inside, and we work precisely with these two states.

Check in your ten whether you go through states where you do not want to connect but make efforts to unite without eliminating contradictions and discord between you. Inside, on the lower floor, you are ready to kill each other. And atop this, you achieve love of your friends. If you are able to build such a relationship, then this is called “a ten,” and if you cannot, this is still not a ten. It is a simple condition, just two floors: all transgressions will be covered by love.

All friends in the ten should feel how egoism burns inside each of them, resisting unification, and how on top of this they understand that in spite of everything, they have to unite. Both of these floors must remain in us, so that between them we reveal the presence of the Creator within us. From the lower floor comes the force of desire (Aviut), and from the upper floor comes the force of intention (Zakut) from which we build a spiritual vessel (Kli) to reveal the Creator. And if we feel no rejection to each other, it is a sign that we are not trying to unite. This is the law.¹

We must learn to live on two floors at the same time, between hatred and love, which support each other. Hatred is the heat, the fire that ignites love, which flares up more and more. One cannot exist without the other, plus cannot exist without minus; we only need to understand how to combine these opposites in our sensation. And this is not easy because our instinctive, natural response is to get rid of hatred.²

We leave all our quarrels and disagreements as they are, we do not even want to look at each other; but on top of this we begin to unite in the exact opposite form. I love what I hated, I connect with what I rejected, and I do not take my eyes off whoever I did not want to look at. I accomplish this overcoming by building one floor above the other. Only in this form is a spiritual vessel built.

By fomenting quarrels between us, the Creator gives us the opportunity to build an ever-growing Kli. Therefore, we must rejoice that a conflict suddenly flares up between us and be creative about what the Creator does with us. It is wonderful that He awakens enmity between us. It has existed for a long time; nothing new is emerging. All this hatred comes from the shattering, from a pit teeming with snakes, but it opens gradually so that on top of it we can build another and still another layer of connection.

Therefore, we must rejoice in the bad as we do in the good, because the good alone cannot build a powerful Kli. Let us mature and begin to build ourselves correctly.

We need to maintain constant balance: if we covered hatred with love, we need to check where the hatred disappeared, why it no longer pops up. Where is this snake, why doesn’t it raise its head? Apparently, we give it no incentives, and it has no reason to rise. You need to gain experience with good and evil. It is like in a family in which the couple never quarrels, they cannot awaken love. Therefore, they purposely tease each other to increase sensitivity in their relationship.³

We must try to feel how the Creator plays with us like He plays the violin: to be sensitive, ready and to invite the Creator. The whole world is the Creator’s appeal to creation in all possible forms, through sounds, images, colors, all this is the language of the Creator. If a person is able to perceive this language, feel, understand, and respond to it, then he gets connected with creation and the Creator within himself.

It is necessary to break away from the feeder because it is inappropriate for a person to eat from the same trough with a donkey. This means that I relate to reality not purely pragmatically, primitively, like an animal, but I see the melody of the Creator in it.⁴
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/19, Writing of Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Book Panim Meirot uMasbirot”

¹ Minute 1:05:35
² Minute 1:13:00
³ Minute 1:19:00
⁴ Minute 1:32:45

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends – 2” (1984)

Writings of Rabash, “What to Look For in the Assembly of Friends” (1988)

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom” 

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If my connection with the Creator can only be through the group, then what is a person’s work regarding the Creator, with respect to “the place”? After all, it is said that the work is divided into two stages: the work relative to the friend and relative to the Creator (the place). “The place” is the ten. First, I must connect with all the friends, and to that extent I can connect with the “place.” There is no Creator without the “place” of our connection, there is no light without the vessel. The place is built from my connection with the ten; otherwise, there is no place, there is no Creator.

The work of a person with the Creator above reason begins only after one has done the work between oneself and the friend within reason. After all, by connecting with the friend, I recreate the common soul, a part of Adam HaRishon. In essence, this is how we reveal the entire soul of Adam HaRishon but on a very small scale, in a billion-fold reduction. But this is already real as if I am looking at the map of the whole world but a very small one. Later, the map will be enlarged, but the reality will not change.

Therefore, we need to reach connection with the friends within reason: wanting to connect with them, love them, support them—within reason. This shows a map of reality that must be in our hands, the structure of the soul given to us by the Creator to work on.

Yet, with respect to the Creator, we always work above reason because He is above our Kelim, our perception. We do not know Him, but reveal Him according to our reactions to His influence. The revelation of the Creator happens within the vessel, “Come and see,” as a result of our work with each other within reason.

The work on our connection must be clear and defined, within reason; but with respect to the Creator, we remain above reason because there is always a component unknown to us, which is above us. We do not know the intention of the upper one, His bestowal, the program of the Creator, but we must always accept it with joy, above our desire.

The Creator includes in Himself the whole light of infinity, the whole corrected Kli, and each time we move from state to state, we reveal that it is opposite to all our previous ideas. Therefore, this cannot be an ordinary advancement but always above reason. Through the preliminary work between us, we prepare ourselves to accept things that are opposite to our nature.¹

When will my stony heart agree that it is a must to connect with the friends? Only after many breakdowns and disappointments when I am certain that life will end and I will die the same animal I am now without achieving anything if I do not annul myself before the friends. A person goes through several such inner shatterings and crises, and eventually gives up and agrees to do whatever is needed.

This is the organization from above. There are people with an enormous egoistic desire, very stubborn, and they cannot comprehend this no matter how much they hear or read about it, or how long they are in the group. They even talk about connection between friends, but do not carry it out. It is one thing to discuss and explain it to others, but it is another thing to feel that this is really how it should be, to feel the desire to nullify before the friends. Not just to accept the inevitable but to want this to happen.

I see that it is very good that everything in nature is arranged this way. Then I already soften up and begin to understand and forgive more and participate more in the common work. However, this comes only after many shatterings, inner cries, sleepless nights, and many years of the upper light working on the will to receive of a person.²

To nullify before the friends means to ask for others while not wanting anything for myself so that only they would receive everything. This will be my fulfillment. After all, I am inside them, I worry about them, and therefore, I ask for them, and only that way can I be fulfilled. This is the measure of my integration with the friends.³
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/29/19, Writings of Rabash, “Concerning Above Reason”
¹ Minute 1:02:10 – 1:16:20
² Minute 1:04:58
³ Minute 1:11:10

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In Connection With The Creator

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