Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “Israel Is Responsible For The Correction Of The World”
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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16, Table of Answers for the Meaning of the Words, Item 142
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “One Commandment”
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “Israel Is Responsible For The Correction Of The World”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”
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Our entire spiritual ascent completely depends on the group. Therefore, the war is always about how to connect, unite, and reach such a state when the upper Light is revealed inside the connection, unites us, and elevates us from our level to the higher degree. However, if we do not make a sufficient effort for the upper Light, which is supposed to elevate us, then it acts from behind and brings us difficulties, troubles, problems, and wars. The Light urges us to awaken and to want its help in order to rise from our degree to the next, either through good or not so pleasant ways.
The Kabbalistic group, the ten, works like an elevator. If a person invests a certain amount of efforts into it, then this elevator starts working on him, attracting the upper Light to him, and raising him to the next floor. This is called a spiritual ascent.1
If I do not ascend in my qualities, bestowal, and attainments, it means that I am not integrated with the ten. I have to see that the ten is ready to absorb and elevate me. If I do not see that, it is only because I “judge according to my own flaws”; otherwise, I would see them in the ideal state. That is, everything depends on me.
If the Creator brought me to the group and said, “Take it, this is your good fortune,” I should annul myself completely and then I will be able to ascend. As soon as the work at this stage finishes, the next floor appears before me. I should again annul myself to the ten, which already seems to me as a different, more advanced one, and perhaps even worse than before.
Again, the same work begins: justification, connection, and annulment. By making a certain amount of efforts, I will again turn the elevator on and it will lift me up a little more. It is the same each time: I annul myself to the group in order to see it as ideal and perfect, and thus I ascend higher and higher.2
If I annul myself to the group, I reveal that they are not friends, but spiritual qualities that only seemed to me as people having various problems and flaws. In fact, they are nine angels sent to help me, lifting me up on their wings.
As soon as I ascend, the same work restarts: I receive a burdening of the heart and fall; I start seeing friends as even worse than before, not at all as angels. It seems to me that they do not want to and cannot unite. I absolutely do not understand what I am doing with them and seems better to search for spirituality alone.
I then totally lose interest in spirituality until time does its work, and I start working on myself thereby realizing that everything depends on me. There is no other reality but me, the ten, and the Creator. All the rest is my ego’s distorted imagination.
I try to see that everything around me is in bestowal, in the spiritual world, and that the presence of the Shechina (Divinity) manifests in the entire world. I try to connect with the group and ask for help until the efforts reach their full amount and my ten turns into a spiritual elevator that lifts me up to the next degree. This is how I move from level to level, “from cloud to cloud.”3
Do not expect that this will happen at a certain time, like in the story of Cinderella, and that the group by itself will turn from a pumpkin into a carriage. It depends only on our work.4
Although it seems to us that we are running in the same place, we are indeed advancing. The calculation is made not on kilometers, but on efforts applied.5
What we see the group is the next world that exists within this world. A group is such a room that upon entering you find yourself in the next world, as if after death. If you do not want to enter it, all that is left for you is to wait for a real death. However, you have an opportunity to receive eternal, happy life right now. You just need to slightly change your ideas about kindness and eternity from egoistic and temporary concepts of our world to truly eternal and perfect ones.
Change your mind and heart a little and begin to live according to eternal and perfect laws. Otherwise you will remain a one-day butterfly, which lives only a day and dies.6
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson – 12/5/18, Lesson on the Topic “Hanukkah”
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 8:40
3 Minute 11:25
4 Minute 20:20
5 Minute 22:10
6 Minute 58:30
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “Covenant Of Salt” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention 2018)
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”
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While I am thinking about myself, I cannot think about the group. Let’s do this exercise: I do not ask for anything for myself and I do not think about myself. I cut off every thought, desire, and action directed at myself, to prevent them from developing and acting.
I have a terrarium with poisonous snakes, but I do not let them slither out. As soon as even the smallest snake pokes its head out, I immediately cut it off. This is called restriction. That is, I reveal that the Creator has put various egoistic desires into me that I need to limit; I need to lock up my “I,” my egoism, and cut off the heads of all egoistic manifestations. Until I cut off all their heads, I will not begin a spiritual action because I have a serpent’s head.
I have only one request for myself: to make a restriction and cease to exist so that my “I” disappears. Faith above reason and spiritual calculations start to act upon this.1
Restricting my egoism does not mean ceasing to feeling it. It continues existing. Moreover, it is enormous and constantly trying to break through. But each time, I lock it up as if it is gone. This is continuous work, which is called “restriction.”
This does not mean that I stop feeling my egoistic desire—I feel it a lot! But I put myself above it, as if it is nonexistent. This means that I receive a restricting force: I have a 1,000 kilogram screen against 1,000 snakes, which keeps them locked up.2
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/18, Lesson on the Topic “How Do We Organize Ourselves For Prayer”
1 Minute 30:40
2 Minute 42:00
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “Prayer” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention 2018)
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Disclosing a Portion, Covering Two”
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The whole creation is one soul, one spiritual vessel (Kli), HaVaYaH, which does not change. It does take on all kinds of forms only in the perception of a person who comprehends it. Therefore in spiritual work, it is necessary to strive to see the whole world as a single whole in which the general and the particular are equal and everything is connected and clear within one system.
Therefore, each of us has to feel like a messenger of society, as responsible for everyone. Each includes the whole ten, the world, and in general, all the worlds. In essence, each of us is one person, and if he imagines and sees some external world around him, it is only because he has not yet achieved perfect perception in order to understand that he is the only creation, except for whom there is no one else, no one opposite the Creator—one on one.
Thus, we do exercises to feel like a steward, or a messenger of society, as the one responsible for everyone, or everyone is responsible for me, and so on. Everyone saves me, and I take care of everyone. And all this so that in my perception, understanding, and most importantly feeling, the difference between me, the society, and the ten disappears. All the distinctions made to my perception as a result of the shattering arranged above must disappear so that I would see the whole world as one system in ten Sefirot.
This is the goal, so all the scrutinies, analysis, and synthesis are aimed at combining all the details into one. First one needs to dismantle everything into small pieces to analyze what a “steward,” a “messenger of society,” and other roles and forms of the work are. In this way we figure out each role and then find out how to put everything together so that they complement each other in one system.
That is, every detail needs to be studied in terms of how to put everything together. Although we single out each role, program, quality, action, and supposedly investigate them separately, we must constantly check how to return them to the whole Kli from the ten Sefirot created by the Creator, into one HaVaYaH within the four stages of direct Light.1
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/26/18, “How Do We Organize Ourselves For Prayer”
1 Minute 0:20
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Lesson on the Topic “Arvut” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention 2018)
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”
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All Jewish holidays, joyful and mournful days, refer to the spiritual process followed by the special group called Israel. In the past, this group already passed through some states in potential, and now it has to implement them in practice. We are approaching this implementation, and therefore we have to learn what should be done on every holiday or special day, as it is written: “The actions of the fathers are a sign for the sons.”
Some holidays were originally set through an awakening from above and others were set by people through an awakening from below. Hanukkah is a special holiday that is not mentioned in the Torah. It comes entirely from the awakening from below, from the degree of Bina, from the created beings wishing to achieve bestowal, the state of smallness, GE, stopping along the way (Chanu-ko) before continuing further.
After acquiring the bestowing desires of GE (Galgalta ve Eynaim), we move to the purpose of creation, to the desires of AHP. This holiday is called spiritual because it relates to the bestowing desires of GE, to the degree of Bina, unlike Purim where we use the receiving desires, and therefore, the customs are completely opposite. Purim relates to the end of correction and it is called a corporeal holiday because the spiritual descends to the corporeal world, correcting and fulfilling the desires of the AHP.
Hanukkah is closer to us than Purim, and so it is more understandable. We can imagine what it is to be in bestowal, above our desire, opposite to it, acting above it. Therefore, it is worthwhile to study the customs of Hanukkah in order to try to approach the closest spiritual degree. All spiritual degrees are based on this condition because each of them begins with GE, the state of smallness, which is the main one, and the state of greatness is just an addition that comes and goes.
Hanukkah is a very special holiday and let us hope that during the week of celebrating it, we will be able to reach this state, scrutinize, and realize it.1
The events related to the holiday of Hanukkah are told in an allegorical language, but our difficulty is that instead of a spiritual state, we imagine a corporeal one. Actually, it is about inner actions and phenomena in which only the desire and the Light, the Creator and the created being, participate, nothing else.
If we want to know what is happening inside such a state, then the Light comes and begins to correct the desire, elevating it to the degree of Bina. Malchut rises to Bina, that is, to the degree of Hanukkah. Malchut must rise to Keter, but it makes a stop in Bina along the way.
In our corporeal life we also celebrate such a state because there was a group that began to develop in spirituality who formed from representatives of various nations living in ancient Babylon, and they called themselves Israel. In their inner, spiritual development, they experienced such states and told about them in the words of the corporeal world. Now we are studying this in both a corporeal and spiritual form.
They established a calendar according to which we celebrate these special events, and called them external traditions, which include lighting candles and cooking food in oil.
The holiday of Hanukkah lasts seven days because the correction must go through all the Sefirot of the Partzuf: Hessed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. It is only about inner desires.2
The most important thing are the disturbances and the work on them. It is impossible to advance without disturbances. The disturbances and our reaction to them are the only thing that advances us toward the purpose of creation. Then we understand that these are not disturbances, but “help against.” Advancement is possible only through additional egoism, the desire to enjoy, due to which we fall, stop understanding and feeling, cannot move, and only want to sleep.
These are the very disturbances by which when we overcome them, and preferably quickly with the help of the group, we are advancing. All our work, our development, every step forward occurs only through the revelation of disturbances. It is written: “A thousand times the righteous will fall and rise again.”
Advancement is based on descents and ascents. You need to see the disturbance in advance and use it as an aid along the way. The work with obstacles and disturbances happens continuously.3
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/2/18, Lesson on the Topic of “Hanukkah”
1 Minute 0:20
2 Minute 1:26:40
3 Minute 1:30:00
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Lesson Preparation
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Lesson on the Topic “Revealing The Creator In The Connection Between Us” (Preparation for the Virtual Convention 2018)
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Exile and Redemption”
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