Before we get to ask, the question comes down from above and enters our mind and feelings. Only then do we sense it and proceed to ask. The Creator answers us through books and teachers.

We are completely controlled from above, and all that is left to do is to annul ourselves. Only by annulling can we feel that we’ve done something ourselves and not just received from the Creator. Annulment involves our participation, our freewill. We may not know how or what to do, but through faith above knowledge we chose to be a part of the neutral zone above reason. If not for this tiny, but most important part, we would not exist as creations but would be similar to the still, vegetative, and animal nature.¹

In this world we are given the friends, the ten, the teacher, and the method. All together it is called my teacher, meaning that which ties me to the goal of creation, the purpose of my life.

The concept of the teacher includes the following:

· A person who studied longer than I have,
· A group of friends that I advance with,
· A method passed down to us by the teacher,
· The books that reached our days through many generations,
· The Creator that we aspire toward through our connection with the books and with the teacher.

All this I combine into one, so that through relating to it the right way and accumulating a certain amount of actions, I would reach a palpable result.

I must annul myself before the Creator in order to advance. This is where the teacher helps me by directing me not toward himself but toward the Creator, as well as the group that directs me not toward the group but toward the Creator. Thus, “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator” aim me toward the upper force. I can annul before the Creator by annulling before the teacher and the group that direct me toward Him.²

The teacher is comprised of two parts:

1. A man of this world,
2. The spiritual component.

It doesn’t matter which human image the teacher portrays to us in this world, for it all depends on the society he lives in and his culture. Each one of us is a product of their environment, we cannot make ourselves different. We need to discount our vision and perception of the outer image of a person and only account for the inner one.

We should treat each other the same way in the group and throughout the world, taking into consideration only their internal qualities, rather than external ones. There are many people from various cultures and nationalities among us. During the lesson on the screen I keep seeing Spain, Peru, the Baltic, Odessa, Plovdiv, Moscow, Kiev, and New York…  A multitude of cities on our screens and of course these are people with different mentalities, various standards of living and outlooks on life. We must erase all of that from our perception.

I don’t look at these differences and only see their connection with the Creator. This is the part I am looking for. I have to collect these connections with the Creator from everyone, as if I am gathering fruit. I want to join in their connection with the Creator, for they already have this connection or they would not be studying with me. I have to increase my connection with the Creator by means of connecting with this quality in every friend.

In order to achieve this, ten people are needed. If there are nine friends with me as the tenth, we can surely affect the Creator. As if we are ringing His doorbell and He opens the door. But on the condition that there are ten of us (Minyan), the minimum quantity that counts. Less than ten is not taken into consideration. In spirituality, ten is as one. This is the difference between this world and the upper world, where only the connection between the ten is felt.

And this is where we do not differ from each other anywhere in the world, and it makes no difference to me whether to unite with Spain or with Almaty, New York, Kiev, St. Petersburg, or Toronto. The main thing is to have ten people, and we will enter into contact with the Creator.

However, if we don’t have ten people, we have to seek them out, we must awaken the friends that stayed home to come to the meeting or to join in virtually. This is the only thing that’s important. We’ve built a virtual network of connections around the world between us, and I hope that we will develop a mechanism that will unite us on a more internal level. With the help of this tool we return to Babylon, but already in a corrected state. From the side of our nature the Babylonian breakage reigns between us, but above it we are united.³
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/10/19, “Baal HaSulam Memorial Day”

¹ Minute 18:25
² Minute 20:33
³ Minute 2:02:09

Related Material:
Friends, I Need You
Baal HaSulam—The Channel For Our Connection With The Creator
Why We Need To Understand The Greatness And Uniqueness Of Baal HaSulam

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The group is the face of the Creator, His image. He has no other image but “Israel, the Torah, and the Creator are one.” Therefore, there is: “Me, the group, and the Creator”—three components that connect into one. Or we can say that behind each friend is the Creator. The same Creator that I wish to see, I must build in my relations with my friends.

To advance to the Creator, I need to perform a completely different action to build His image, as I imagine it, in my relations with my friends. Let’s check if I identify the image of the Creator in the group or not? Do I organize the group according to the image of the Creator that I imagine? Do we connect to each other to build the image of the Creator in our relations?

It is said: “You have made Me.” It is as if I take clay or play dough and form the image of the Creator in the relationship with friends. From above downward, the Creator creates a person, and from below upward, a person creates the Creator.¹

The light that leads to the connection with the Creator is primary. It is small, weak, but close. And the light that gives connection to the group is strong, multifaceted, powerful. They differ like an audio signal transmitting only voice in comparison with a video signal transmitting a complete picture with a lot of data.

First, the Creator awakens me with a thin ray in which there is nothing but this brief awakening. But through the group, a window through which I can reveal all of reality until the end of correction opens for me because the group represents the image of the Creator.

Final correction means that we expand our Kli of perception so that it contains the entire manifestation of the Creator, all His infinite bestowal. That is, I must discover a limitless connection in the ten, and this will be the final correction.

If I aspire to the Creator without a ten, then this is still an egoistic awakening due to the fact that the Creator excites me. Still, I already see that one should not drown in one’s egoism, but I supposedly want to find a desire belonging to the Creator. This is still an egoistic attitude but already a step forward.

If I want to connect with the Creator through the group, it means that a special illumination comes to me through it. Maybe I still do not understand this, but subconsciously I feel and begin to reach for the group. Therefore, the group becomes important to me.

The desire for the group suggests that a person receives illumination through it. I want to cling to the Creator so I cling to the group, which for me acquires the importance of the Creator.

To the extent that I imagine the Creator within the group and the group brings itself to be in equivalence of form with the Creator, to that extent I am in adhesion with both of them and really find the Creator in the group. This means that the vessel and the light become equal and the light begins to clothe itself inside the desire.²
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/14/19, Preparation to the Europe Convention

¹ Minute 20:00
² Minute 43:25

Related Material:
Address The Creator Through The Group
Through The Group To The Creator
Clinging To The Creator Through The Group

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Love Covers All Crimes” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria”

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The holiday of Sukkot allows you to better understand spiritual work, that is, the way a person approaches the Creator. Due to our unity and the diminishing of our ego, we create a place for the Creator where He can dress and reveal Himself among us. The nature of this work varies depending on the depth of desire and its state at different stages of approaching the Creator. Therefore, there are times when the work differs: special days, holidays, days and nights, weeks, etc.

Now we are clarifying a special kind, a special form of approaching the Creator called “Sukkot.” In essence, this work always includes the same components: the desire to enjoy, restriction, the screen, and the reflected light, but with different types of connection between the corrected desire and the upper force, the source of light.

That is why we are studying holiday traditions not as folk customs, but as a method of special approach to the Creator. After all, there is a connection between the branch and the root, and therefore, the state of spiritual roots is reflected in our world. At a time when there is a special surrounding light that brings the corporeal holiday of Sukkot to this world, we should study the upper spiritual roots of this holiday.

Various states descend from the upper roots into our world, reflected as holidays and special traditions in our world.

We exist in the reality of our desire to enjoy, which pictures this whole world for us. And in order to see the true world, we must rise above this egoistic picture. For this, we need to make a cover (Schach), that is, to raise the importance of concepts for which there is absolutely no use from the point of view of a sound egoistic mind: faith, bestowal, unity, love.

No one appreciates such things in our world. As a rule, the most egoistic people striving for power, money, fame, like to talk about love for people, but we understand that this is only to confuse others and take power over them.

Sukkot is a radical transformation that occurs after a person decides to start the New Year, a new period. Everything that was previously insignificant garbage for him, rejected by our egoistic desire, he now collects and raises above his head.

These things cannot be at the level of the mind because there is no rational meaning in them. They need to be elevated above reason, against human logic, and appreciated above all that exists in this world. What becomes most important to me is unity, love, bestowal—everything related to the correction of the desire.

If a person thinks this way, it means that he is building the Sukkah and sanctifies it, sitting in its shadow and enjoying himself. Only in this form can he achieve Ushpizin and deserve to receive honored guests, approaching the Creator more and more every day. The seven days of Sukkot are against the seven Sefirot revealing in our corrected spiritual vessel (Kli).¹

Rabash, Letter #36: “…for it is known that Sukkah is the “shadow of faith,” and with respect to the judgment, its shade must be bigger than its sun.

And if one is rewarded and does not add shade on his own, there is mercy on him from above and the sun is covered for him. But then a person becomes angry because he understands otherwise.

And if a person overcomes the shade, he is given “a sun,” and then he must add shade. If he does not add, he is given shade from above, and so forth until he is rewarded with eternal Dvekut (adhesion).

This is called a dance. The Creator plays with a person, giving him sometimes more, sometimes less, and checking his reaction. A person must keep the shade all the time so that his screen covers all his knowledge, that is, he always remains in bestowal.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/15/19, Sukkot

¹ Minute 0:20
² Minute 1:46:50

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Sukkot Is A Symbol Of Internal Work
Sukkot: On The Fifteenth Day Of The Seventh Month
Warm Waves Of The Sukkot Holiday

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Love Covers All Crimes” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria”

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We consist of a dark will to receive that depends entirely on the fulfillment it receives. It is the lowliest, most helpless and dependent property, which is unable to do anything by itself; it is only waiting to be fulfilled. If we are made of such matter, we must understand that our advancement, success, and exit from this state is possible only on account of a force opposite to us, foreign to us, the force of bestowal, love, connection, and unity.

But how can we attract this force if we do not have any connection with it? If we remain in our egoistic nature, we are lost. Either we resign ourselves and submit completely to the control of our nature or we demand that the nature opposite to us will work on us and bring us out of this unconscious, dependent, lowliest state.

According to the nature of the will to receive, I only want to satisfy and silence my desire; that is, I am bringing myself to death. Here, the wisdom of Kabbalah comes to our aid, explaining in what form we should yearn for fulfillment, how to change ourselves, how to correctly use our desire—the only thing we have.

Inanimate nature, plants, and animals instinctively obey their desire, but a person is given an opportunity to create a system for analyzing, comprehending, changing, and comparing the desired and actual states. Through the environment, I can receive forces opposite to my own will to receive. Thus, I will be able to reach balance, comparing the two opposite systems.

Therefore, the correction of a person is only possible with the help of prayer. I connect with the force opposite to me and ask it to give me the force of bestowal. Now there are two forces in me, like two lines that will help me build the middle line from them and rise higher and higher above my nature, that is, acquire stronger and stronger faith above reason.

We must concentrate all our abilities and capabilities on this appeal to the upper force. Yet, since we do not feel it and cannot be like it, we need to build a system of shattered egoistic desires that will feel with all its egoism the need to connect with others, as it is written: “Go and earn from each other.” This is why we build a family, a society, a nation, a country, and so on.

Development happens at the expense of a growing unity until this system begins to eat itself up the way it happens in our days. Egoism no longer sees the benefit in connection, having reached the highest possible mark in it. Then egoism wanders, not seeing where to go further. This is the essence of the crisis of our time. It is evident among the young generation that it does not know where to go and what to fulfill itself with. It does not have a need for connection with others; a smartphone is enough.

From this, it is obvious that the old method of connection, which was giving us fulfillment, does not work anymore. Now we need to build a new form of connection not based on receiving benefits at the expense of others, which brought us to a dead end. First comes the recognition of evil, that is, the understanding that it is not possible to correct our condition in the old way. It is necessary to restore the system that existed before the shattering, that is, to bring it back to the corrected state.

All this is achieved only through a prayer, a request, if we understand that there is no way out and there is only one action left: the connection that we can reach only by requesting the force of connection. We recognize the evil of our nature and the good of the opposite to it perfect system, which we do not feel because of our shattering. The difference between these two systems is the difference between the Creator and the created beings.

In order to ask for the force of correction, we ourselves must start building a small, corrected system and it will become clear from it what needs to be requested. So, we come to a small group, to a ten. And from there, we already see what we are lacking in order to connect as one. We do not cancel each other; rather, we complement each other.

This is how the entire ten works, and when we finish assembling this puzzle, we feel the inner force and the life of unity in it, which is the Creator. Therefore, I need to bring myself to the feeling of the ten, to the desire that can be revealed in it, and to find out how much strength we need in order to feel like ten, and not like one, two, or five.

From this aspiration, we will feel the yearning for the upper force of connection called the Creator, the connecting, fulfilling, and sustaining force. All forces are above, and all the requests are below—in our hands. We will not get anything until we request exactly what we should and in the correct quantity and quality. Then indeed, “His seed will be mighty in the land, a generation of upright ones, which shall be blessed.”¹
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/17/19, Sukkot

¹ Minute 0:15

Related Material:
Prayer—Conversation With The Creator
He Who Makes Peace In The Upper World Will Make Peace Upon Us
Appealing To The Creator Together

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria”

Writings of Rabash, “Concerning the Importance of Friends”  17-1 (1984)

Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria”

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Lesson Preparation

Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends – 1.3”  (1984)

Lesson on the Topic “Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria”

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Overview – From the Awakening of the Point in the Heart to Despair in Our Own Strength” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Teaching of the Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “Bnei Baruch” – Spiritual Pipeline to the World” (Preparation for the Convention in Bulgaria)

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