Choice is the most important thing in our life. We constantly choose, weigh, and compare one thing with another either consciously or subconsciously, changing our approach, our system of evaluation, views, and priorities. Our entire life is the choice of the best option according to some criteria determined by what is more important to us now. We are constantly checking what we have to lose as a result of our choice and how much we will gain because of it.

It is possible that the solution we chose is not very pleasant, but it is so important that we must go for it. All our life we work like the most complex computer that processes a lot of data in order to make the correct calculation. Of course, each of us would like to make the right choice that allows us to confidently determine the best situation that wins by all the indicators and avoid the worst situations without any shadow of a doubt, not choosing one at the expense of the other and regretting the missed opportunities.

Only faith allows making such a choice, the feeling of the force of bestowal and love, which is something beyond our will to receive. The problem, however, is that we do not feel this force of bestowal, so how can we acquire such faith called “the staff”? Even if we acquire it, at the next degree, the faith already crosses into the egoistic sphere and becomes “the serpent.”

I must overcome this growing egoism and then I will come to faith again, already at a new degree. Each time the force of holiness crosses over into the egoism and so I rise all the time as if walking on two legs, right and left. The left line grows only if I have raised the right one correctly.

We should always lean on the “staff” and not on the “serpent,” that is, on faith, on something that seems low and unimportant to our egoism, and lift it upward. This is the entire work of a person: the staff constantly falls and we must lift it. If this were not happening, we would not be able to advance and get closer to the Creator. Every time I lift the staff, the faith, I take another little step forward.

As soon as I leave this staff, it immediately falls and turns into a serpent. It is help from above that the staff falls; otherwise, I would not be able to advance. If I lean on my knowledge, that is, make an egoistic choice, then I do not have any difficulty.

The staff is what directs me to the Creator. If I hold it up, as the most important thing, then step by step I get closer to the quality of bestowal, degree by degree. The environment is the staff if it is more important to me than myself. Then through the environment, I rise toward the Creator. Therefore, this degree is called Moses because it pulls (Moshech) the people.¹

The light is only revealed if there is a barrier before it. It would seem that outer space should be the brightest because nothing obscures the light there. However, precisely because there is no barrier for the light, it cannot be seen. The cosmos is absolutely black. However, if we put a screen before the rays of the Sun, then you will see that there is light.

All we are missing is the screen! Light cannot shine if there are no barriers on its path. Therefore, if we want the light to be revealed in us, we should make a screen for it. One person cannot become a screen for the light. However, if we unite in the ten, above our egoism, despite the fact that each of us is full of pride and does not want connection with others, we raise the importance of connection and even higher than that, the importance of the Creator whom we want to reveal.

We want to feel the Creator inside of our internal unity as real as we feel each other now. Together, we make such a sandwich: our will to receive is at the bottom and unity, the screen, our readiness to connect despite our egoism, is on the top. Then the upper light is revealed on this screen and becomes visible to us.

One person cannot build such a screen out of his personal egoism; this is possible only by connecting with the friends.²

To help a friend means raising the importance of spirituality, the importance of connection, giving him the “staff.” Nobody can do it by himself. If one can do it by oneself, it is not real spiritual work but only preparation for it.

Every time this work becomes more and more difficult; after all, now I trip over the “staff” that I lifted the time before. The left line rises higher and higher at the expense of the right one, at the expense of my past successes. I must start everything anew as if in a new place, in a new country, in a new language, with a new understanding and new perception. This is a new degree! Every day a person is as if born again.

It is impossible to do this alone. It is a huge mistake to think that by shutting myself inside, in my personal inner work, it is possible to do deeper, more intimate clarifications. This is nonsense! It takes many years for a person to understand that in this way he is just spinning in the same place, like a puppy chasing his tail.

Only by incorporating each time in the group, even if it consists of beginners, we will be rising to increasingly elevated states. Even if the friends are below you, by incorporating in them, you ascend to the next degree. It is only possible to lift the “staff” with the help of friends, all together. Friends, I need you! Help me!³
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/19, Baal HaSulam, Shamati 59, “Concerning the Rod and the Serpent”
1 Minute 0:15
2 Minute 24:10
3 Minute 42:00

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

Lesson on the Topic “Dissolving In The Friends” (Preparation for Convention in Moldova)

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

Lesson on the Topic “Dissolving In The Friends” (Preparation for Convention in Moldova)

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Questions and Answers with Dr. Michael Laitman

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item  20

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

Lesson on the Topic “Questions and Answers with Dr. Michael Laitman”

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

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From the Preface of Chaim Vital to Shaar Akdamot: “Harvest passed, the end of summer, but deliverance did not come to us. There was no cure for our diseases, no cure for our wounds, for the destruction of our Temple, which today is already 1,504 years old. And hope ran out, the son of David still has not come. But it is said that every generation that does not build the Temple in its days, as if destroys it. And I decided to study and find out why our punishment dragged on, our exile, and salvation has not yet come…”

In the time of Abraham, the people of Israel formed as a group of his apprentices. Abraham asked the Creator: “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it” [our mission and achieve a common correction]”? [“ (Genesis 15; 8) What did the Creator reply? It is written, “And He said unto Abram: Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” (Shamati #86)

Abraham then realized that one needs to join in a huge egoistic desire, which is called “exile.” This was an Egyptian exile, slavery to the Pharaoh, but we are talking about the internal state of this group. Exile was a shattering because the desires of the Egyptians, that is, the reluctance to unite, penetrated between the Jews⁠, between the aspiration to unity (yichud), and estranged them from each other and from the Creator.

In exile, they absorbed all the other people’s egoistic thoughts and intentions and became ready for liberation, for the correction of the desire to enjoy. Therefore, after ten plagues, they were able to leave Egypt.

It was impossible to leave without the plagues because they already liked being in egoism, as we do now. Ten plagues will also come to us. These are blows to Pharaoh, who lives inside each person and all of us together, to help us break away and leave it. The egoistic desire that separates us is called Pharaoh.

When we separate from the desire to enjoy for our own sake, we can move on to the next stage of correction and receive the Torah. We undertake being in mutual guarantee (Arvut) and unity, and want to receive the force that will connect us. Because this power comes, we get a method that contains the reforming light, and begin to use it.

For forty years we correct ourselves to bestow for the sake of bestowal. After that, correction within the desire itself already begins, to receive for the sake of bestowal. The desire to receive for the sake of bestowal is no longer a desert, but a “Land of Israel.” That is, we begin to build ourselves: we build the First Temple, and then the Second. After the destruction of both Temples, one needs to wait until all desires fall and break, and then one can begin to correct them in order.

The process of correction begins from the time of Ari and after. Therefore, in the 16th century, such a high soul as the Ari was revealed in the world that transferred the method of correction to us.

Chaim Vital was a student of the Ari; he wrote down everything that he learned from his teacher and passed these books on to us. He sat and cried that time passed, but there was no correction, the Messiah ben David did not come.

Why did he not come? It was because the people were not ready for it, that is, they did not require correction. According to the rule, “there is no coercion in spirituality,” the upper light cannot come and start correcting us without our desire. We have to initiate it with our prayer, tremendous work and efforts, and reveal the need for correction and good deeds.

That is, we have to try and correct ourselves and be sure that we cannot do this, and then ask for help. As a result of our efforts, we will understand what to ask for. While this is not in place, the Messiah—the light of correction—will not come.

Five hundred years have passed since the time of the Ari, when will the correction come? Baal Shem Tov asked the Messiah when he would finally come. And the Messiah answered: “When my sources spill out,” that is, when the wisdom of Kabbalah is revealed.

This is what we need to do. The light cannot come and begin to correct desires if people do not want correction and do not know why they live. They do not care about the meaning of life; filling themselves with something from morning to evening and from evening to morning is the most important thing to them.

So a hundred and two hundred years pass, and nothing changes, but in the meantime, we are destroying the world. The situation is getting increasingly worse because the light increasingly enters the desire, only we do not feel it. This is called the path of suffering, the natural course of development (Beito). Nevertheless, some corrections occur, but due to blows, for a long time, without the consent of the lower and his request.

We have had the opportunity after the Ari to wake up and finish our correction, even then in the 16th century. We seemed to have missed this chance. The main thing is not to miss it now: to reveal the correction method to the world and implement it.
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/30/19, Lesson on the Topic “Tishaa BeAv (Ninth of Av)”

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The lower one receives everything from the upper one: this world, the upper world, and all the means for the ascent, all the components of correction, and all the internal conditions. What is left for him is to scrutinize his attitude to his external and internal states, that is, to the group, to the world, to himself, and then integrate into the group and annul himself.

For now we cannot do anything other than annul ourselves. Even later, when we will be working with all our might, all our participation consists of increasingly annulling ourselves. For the time being, this is the entire correction: until the very end, until the coming of the Messiah, the light of Rav Paalim uMekabtziel. All our greatest actions are the actions of annulling ourselves because we are working on correcting egoism.

The annulment can be either passive or active, at different degrees, in constantly changing internal and external conditions. But the main experience we need to gain from all the states we go through is the ability to annul ourselves by our own choice. I must know why I annul myself, toward whom, how to do it, and by doing so, I find the ten, the group, and the entire world.

By annulling myself, I adhere to the annulment of the Creator and attain Him through His annulment. This is how a baby attains his mother through their mutual annulment. Otherwise, he will be attached to her only externally, using her because she serves him. However, by annulling himself for the sake of connection with her, he begins to understand how she annuls herself toward him, and he studies the upper one this way. Here, it is very important to annul oneself toward the right people and not toward the entire external egoistic world.

Passive annulment is bestowal for the sake of bestowal, and active annulment is reception for the sake of bestowal. I am in the upper one, I feel Him and understand what contentment I can give Him through my reception, helping Him to be revealed within me. To give to the Creator the pleasure of His revelation in the created beings is the work that until the end of correction is done in the ascent, with AHP de Aliyah, by adhering to the upper, that is, by annulling myself before Him through the annulment toward the group. As it is written: “From love for the created beings to the love for the Creator.”

This is how we advance step by step, rising and falling, and again rising and falling, as it is written: “And there was evening and there was morning, one day.” Every time we build a new state because we lose everything we received previously. If we remembered and kept the previous state, the exertion would be impure. I have to fall to the state of “Shimon from the market.”¹

We are in the corporeal world in order to have an opportunity to organize systems here that do not depend on our spiritual ascents and descents. Therefore, we can remind each other about the intention, oblige ourselves to work according to a timetable, according to the corporeal states. This is why the one who does not come to the lesson every day is not participating in the common work. Every lesson is a new ascent, new participation, connection, and construction of the Kli.²
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/8/19, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 179
1 Minute 28:40 – 36:12
2 Minute 35:30

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Lesson Preparation

Lesson on the Topic “There is None Else Besides Him”

Lesson on the Topic “A Kli [vessel] that Holds a Blessing for Israel” 

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