Preparation for the Lesson
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Shamati #34 “The Profit of a Land”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Ascents and Descents on the Path”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Gatehouse of Intentions,” Item 107
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Zivug“
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Gatehouse of Intentions,” Item 115
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings,” “Why Was the Torah Given to Israel”
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Gatehouse of Intentions,” Item 109
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings,” “Why Was the Torah Not Given to the Patriarchs”
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Zivug“
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Gatehouse of Intentions,” Item 99
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings,” “Two Parts to the Torah: Between Man and God and Between Man and Man”
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Question: How do we organize ourselves in a state of spiritual Ubar (Fetus), and the group as a uterus within which this Ubar develops?
Answer: It is up to us to build ourselves from nothing. The Creator brings me to a group and says to me that I must build my spiritual life here! Now, it is up to me to build myself as an Ubar and make a uterus out of the group. This is the only thing that is given to me.
It is up to me to build a society around myself that I will use as a uterus or an incubator, meaning that it will support me constantly and be an example for me, a standard for the higher level, the state of perfection. I will be able to exist within this environment on condition that I constantly open a connection that is directed more and more toward the higher perfect level.
It is up to me to build all of this by myself. After all, I am in a state where I have nothing. There is no Creator. There is only His essence, a force that I do not know. I must form all of this with my own hands.
Question: By what means do I build an environment for myself? Is it just by calling upon everyone to appreciate the property of bestowal?
Answer: There are many articles by Rabash that are dedicated to building the group. It is only necessary to fulfill his instructions and build it. However, I need to build myself in two forms. I build the higher level, the group, for myself, and I build the Ubar, the lower level, for the group.
The Ubar is all of us together. We lower and nullify ourselves, each of us in regard to the group, the friends. The Ubar is also our common co-creation. Through nullifying ourselves we can connect together.
The group is the higher level. It is also the commonality between us, but already in the form of bestowal. The more we love the group, elevating it, perceiving it as whole and great, the more we inflate it around us and can exist within it.
Both the Ubar and the uterus are built by the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light), the Light that Reforms. However, our work on two opposite forms is required for this. Sometimes, it is directed downward toward nullifying the self. That is how we build the point of Malchut. Sometimes, it is directed upward for building the Keter. The Keter we build is linked to a higher level.
We are summarizing now everything that we have been learning for many years about the group. We have gone over those articles many times, but notice how many of these concepts have not succeeded in penetrating our hearts. We constantly hear about the structure of the group, but it still is difficult for us to digest these principles.
When we explain this to the general public, we must understand that they are much further away from these concepts. After all, we are very familiar with the spiritual states. There have been numerous spiritual changes that have happened within us and we still have not ascended the spiritual ladder.
The preparatory period before the first spiritual level is very long, but we are at its end. We just must understand that it is necessary to relate to the external public with love and understanding, giving them explanations drop by drop.
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From the 3rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/12/14, Talmud Eser Sefirot
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The Zohar, “The Second Commandment,” item 198: The second Mitzva (commandment) is inseparably connected with the Mitzva of fear, and it is the Mitzva of love—for man to love his Creator with perfect love. What is perfect love? It is a great love, as it is written, “He walks before the Creator in complete sincerity and perfection” (Beresheet, 17:1).
There exists conditional love, which appears as a result of all the goodness received from the Creator (Introduction to The Study of Ten Sefirot, items 66-74), as a result of which man merges with the Creator with all his heart and soul. Yet, although he merges with the Creator in complete perfection, this love is considered imperfect.
Perfect love is the greatest, most inclusive upper commandment that Kabbalists tell us about, which is the major requirement with regard to all of creation that we must fulfill. This is the reason it is called a Mitzva.
In conditional love, the more I receive, the more I love the giver. It turns out that I don’t actually love him but the source from which all of the pleasures come. If this source of pleasure stops, I will lose the connection with this person or this force. This is called conditional love because it depends on my pleasure.
I depend on that love because I cannot differentiate myself from my pleasure, from the part in me that enjoys. I don’t split myself into two parts yet: into the donkey that enjoys and the human being who differentiates, sees, realizes, and feels that. The donkey and the human being are still connected. Therefore, if I feel good, I love the source of pleasure, and if I feel bad, I don’t love it.
This is the way we all love in this world, starting from small children who sometimes say that mommy is bad if she doesn’t do what they like. This is a natural, direct response of the ego and is natural for everyone with regard to everything in life. This kind of love is called conditional love, and therefore, it is imperfect. This is in accordance with the level of our development, and there is nothing we can do about it.
Of course, the more we develop, the more we will demand a more sublime love, not just some delicious food, some service, or some small pleasures, but more sublime and special feelings. However, this love still depends on receiving pleasure. It is with such love and from such love that we are born since we are a desire to receive; we are all like beasts, and this is where we start. This is the reason that we love what we enjoy, which means the source of the pleasure that we feel.
This requires much work, great effort, and a gift from above in order to begin to detach from the source of pleasure and connect to one’s inner essence. We should stop depending on receiving pleasure in our donkey and should prefer the actual source of pleasure, His qualities, not bringing direct benefit to me, but are valued for their own sake, at their source. It will be a love not conditional on what I get, but which depends only on what I identify by my impression of the sublime qualities of the source, on His special exaltedness as compared to everything that I can imagine.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/14
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Question: How can we clarify our desire for connection with the group more and more precisely?
Answer: The desire in itself will not be clarified, except through my effort. I must constantly bow down and look under my feet, trying to find additional desires, deficiencies, and problems. This is an unpleasant, uncomfortable process because it is directed against my ego.
A person is built physiologically like this so that he egoistically yearns for comfort and fulfillment. Hormones that cause joy and happiness spread through the body while I lie on the sofa, watch some silly but enjoyable movie, and eat something sweet and tasty. In this state, there is the maximum emission of the happiness hormone.
If we seek possibilities for advancing in the way of Achishena (I will hasten it), we need to be in a completely opposite state. I cannot lie down, but must work, attain, and acquire additional deficiencies. I must clarify what else I am missing. I constantly search for deficiencies as if I am searching for unpleasant things, and this is work.
How can I make this work easier for myself and not run away from it? After all, the body will always resist it, and so I must go along with the group. If I take obligations upon myself within a group and we work together, somehow I can fight against myself and do this. Otherwise, I cannot.
So, if you want to reduce the time and make it more useful and beneficial, advancing easily and pleasantly, you need to pull and obligate your body to work hard and in an unpleasant way instead of lying on the sofa and enjoying idleness. You can do this playing to your natural feelings of shame, envy, and honor, meaning you use the incentives inherent in the human and not the animal level.
An animal lies on the sofa, but to connect with others, I require human, not beastly, motives, meaning envy, lust, and honor that cause me to leap off the sofa. We must organize in a group in such a system. And if we don’t, then we simply are wasting time for nothing, and achieving and gaining nothing.
We must be somehow connected to the life of the world group. If there is no local group, then at least contact us and get some tasks. Be connected to the departments we have here. Otherwise, you won’t even notice how your beastly body always will draw you toward something comfortable and easy. You always will be satisfied, and it will seem that everything is okay to you, but advancement will be nil.
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From the 2nd part for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/14, The Book of Zohar
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Preparation for the Lesson
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Lesson on the Topic: “Preparation for the Convention”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “Preface to the Wisdom of Kabbalah,” Item 47
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The Book of Zohar – Selected Excerpts, “Love”
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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Love for the Creator & Love for the Created Beings”
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Where can we find spiritual deficiencies for love and bestowal? They are not found in this wide world, but only in the group and Kabbalah books, in means for spiritual advancement. Thus, I shorten the way quantitatively and qualitatively: I advance and make sure I have new vessels. This is called the path of “I shall hasten it” (Achishena) in which I build my deficiencies by myself, make sure my desire is made of the right components, and thus implement the goal.
On the other hand, by advancing in its time (Beito), I must build up a deficiency for a long time by clarifying exactly why it must be that way and by which means I can fulfill it. I must know its complete character and form while I have no yearning for it and am in a state of a descent, not feeling any attraction to spirituality. That’s the way it will be until different problems come my way from external sources that will push me forward by suffering. This is the only way that I can be motivated since I am detached from spirituality.
When I am given a state of descent and feel in spiritual darkness, I don’t lose the connection with the group, the teacher, or the source. I may not even feel the darkness, but simply operate automatically like a beast, as of yore. In this state, I can be awakened only by suffering, so I am sent some trouble related to the family, making a living, or health.
Then, I begin to run around in order to take care of the problems, and if I am not connected to the group and the teacher, I can spend my entire life in this endless struggle. However, if I prepare such a connection in advance—coming to the lessons regularly, to the meetings of friends, and participating in dissemination activities organized by the group—I gradually receive the right awakening from the Surrounding Light and understand that these are not external problems but that they come from the upper management. Everything comes from only one source: all of the confusions and all of the discomforts in life are caused only because I haven’t tightened my connection to the ultimate goal enough and have not looked for it myself.
I must organize my life so that I will behave like an old man who bent over constantly looking for something he dropped. This is how I need to move forward, looking down at my feet checking if something is lost: I can make a deeper and more complex deficiency than the desire that now lays at my base and operates me.
Every level is built on the previous level, and our perception grows and becomes ten times sharper in the sensitivity of the vessels and in clarifying them. If I perceive one hundred different discernments on one level, I discern ten times more on the next level, which means a thousand discernments, and on the next level, ten thousand discernments. It is the same desire, but it simply becomes finer and more complex. I suddenly identify details on a larger scale with greater perception in it and increasingly more discernments.
The development is due to the multiplication of qualities, rather than power. The power in the spiritual world is determined by the number of distinct pieces for each impression, sensation. This is what our advancement depends on. The main thing is to be constantly involved in practical work, studies, and actions that awaken a desire to seek spiritual properties, more sublime values. Through this approach, I turn from the path of natural development, in its time, to the path of light, the acceleration time. Then I will not need to waste my life in vain hopes and I’ll advance quickly and easily.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/10/14
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