Question: How does one see everything that the Kabbalists wrote through a single formula called “connection”?

Answer: Connection is like the focus in a camera. Everything happens through a very small aperture that concentrates all the rays of light. If this focal point doesn’t exist, there is no passage for the light.

The first cameras were composed of a light-sensitive plate and a box with a small hole. That’s all!

The main thing was that all the rays of light were focused through this opening and reached the photographic plate. In fact nothing was necessary besides a very compressed opening.

This is what we need. This is the nature of unity that compresses everything into one; then the entire picture can enter through this tiny opening. The smaller the hole, the sharper and clearer the image is, with higher resolution.

This is apparently the opposite of how it seems to us. It seems that it is necessary to open the widest channel for light. However, this is actually realized through the smallest and most compact opening.

It is worthwhile to think about this example, for in it we see a comparison between a physical phenomenon and a spiritual phenomenon.

Question: What must we navigate through this opening?

Answer: It is not necessary to pass anything. The Light is found at absolute rest. The moment that the opening of unity is created, the Light will immediately enter into it and pass from one world to the other world.

The moment that we succeed in connecting among us in the form of an opening like this, which means that the moment that all of us succeed in compacting into one, we become a channel for the Light. This oneness transforms into a conduit of Light. And if this oneness doesn’t exist, the Light doesn’t pass through.

Question: As simple as it seems, it is difficult to apply this! How do we construct this opening?

Answer: It is a law of nature: If you are able, realize it, if not, then not. It is necessary to learn from nature, from the still, vegetative, and animate, and  to realize the same laws, but on the human level, to reach harmony and perfect nature on our level.

You have an example, so realize it on your level. This is difficult, but we offer you help. The Kabbalists of all generations wrote about this; they gave you a guide; they brought you to a group; what is left for you is only to apply it. It is impossible to do more for you because it would no longer be your work but that of the Creator, and then the creature would lose its meaning.

The meaning of all of creation is that an independent human will arise from it. Ever since Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction) a decision was made: The guest must achieve bestowal to the host. He must do this alone, and there is no room for compromise here. Through the connection between us we realize this state, this decision that was made.

The difficulty is just that we don’t ask the Creator to help us!
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14

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Writings of Rabash, “Steps of the Ladder,” Article 38

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The Book of Zohar, Selected Excerpts — “Israel,” Item 1

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Talmud Eser Sefirot, Vol. 6, Part 16

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Our time is called the days of the Messiah. About this it is written in Mishnah Sotah 9:15: With the footsteps of the Messiah, insolence will increase. This means that very difficult, heavy, receptive Kelim (desires) will be revealed, great hatred will come into the world, and the war of Gog and Magog will break out in all its strength. The idea is that after Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction), and after the decision that the Tachton (lower one) wants to receive only in order to bestow, the entire Olam Ein Sof (world of Infinity) is arranged according to the Masachim (screens), according to the ability of the Tachton to bestow to the Ein Sof, which is the Elyon (upper one).

The worlds are arranged in the following order: Adam Kadmon, Atzilut, Beria, Yetzira, Assiya. Adam Kadmon is Keter. Atzilut is Hochma and GAR de Bina (upper half of Bina). Beriya is ZAT de Bina (lower half of Bina). Yetzira is Zeir Anpin and Assiya is Malchut.

After Tzimtzum Bet (the second restriction) and the Shevira (shattering), it is possible to work only with the Kelim of bestowal, which are Keter, Hochma, and the GAR de Bina. When we raise these Kelim from BYA (Beriya, Yetzira, Assiya) to Atzilut, they are called Yashar-El (straight to Creator), Israel. These desires are easier to work with and it is possible to correct them.

But it is impossible to correct the difficult desires because they are too heavy and it is difficult to lift them. This is possible only with their connection with other desires. But without joining the difficult, heavy, dense Kelim to Galgalta ve Eynaim, the Galgalta ve Eynaim are incomplete, they will lack their Achoriim (back), which is the AHP.

These desires of the AHP fell below the Parsa (border) and are found in the captivity of desires called the nations of the world. As long as the type of desires of the nations of the world, which are called the children, the Kelim found below, do not begin to awaken and do not illuminate the Kelim of the higher AHP that fell into them, this AHP cannot rise and join the Kelim of the higher Galgalta ve Eynaim.

This means that Israel cannot escape from the exile because the nations of the world hold onto them. Or, it is possible to say that the fathers, which are Galgalta ve Eynaim, cannot grow because their AHP are found below within the Kelim of the Galgalta ve Eynaim of the children who have not released them and don’t awaken them.

When the AHP of the Elyon fell into the Galgalta ve Eynaim of the Tachton, they gave us the ability to bestow to the Elyon and be connected to the great Kabbalists, the lofty souls who already corrected themselves and are now waiting as we continue to correct them.

All of the AHP of all the higher levels fell down to the lower levels. To be awakened, and thereby awaken the AHP of the Elyon as well, depends on the Galgalta ve Eynaim of the Tachton into which the AHP of the Elyon fell.

The AHP of the Elyon, which is found within the Galgalta ve Eynaim of the Tachton, is called MAN, prayer. And so we awaken the MAN when we awaken our Galgalta ve Eynaim. But we do all of this in order to give contentment to the Creator, to the Elyon. For us, the higher level is always the Creator.

This is called giving contentment to the Creator: the awakening of your own Galgalta ve Eynaim so that you will adhere to the AHP of the Elyon that fell into you, makes it possible to really make a single Partzuf. With this, you awaken it to ascend. This is called that you are raising MAN, a prayer.

The Galgalta ve Eynaim of the Tachton enter into the AHP of the Elyon like a drop of semen enters the uterus, and clings like a fetus within the uterus that wants to be developed there. In this way, it obligates the uterus, the AHP of the Elyon, to rise up and receive a double Light, which is called, Baba Batra 124a: The firstborn takes twice as much. The firstborn receives twice as much so he can pass it on to us as well.
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From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/06/14

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What is required in order to discover the good? Why does someone who is born into great abundance not appreciate it? You tell children: “See how much you have! How much I have given to you! When I was a child I didn’t have this.” Yet they wave you off and don’t want to hear this.

They cannot appreciate your goodness since they have nothing with which to compare it. So they don’t understand what kind of gratitude you require from them. They want to go to the movies, they can go; they want a computer, they get it; a new mobile phone, to go on vacation, whatever they want. They have everything, and so they also have no desire for anything.

You tell them that when you were their age, you built a car for yourself from a shoebox and played with this car for two years, and they laugh at you. They are right, because everything is measured according to desire.

They feel themselves on a particular level of satiation and will not move from it in any direction. First one must descend to minus infinity to be able to feel plus infinity afterward.

About this it was said in “Leviticus” 26:10: When I break for you the staff of bread, and ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, and you will eat, yet not be satisfied, meaning that nothing in the world changes except our consciousness. Even now you are found in Olam Ein Sof (the world of infinity), yet instead of that you feel this world because you don’t have the Kelim to perceive Ein Sof.

On one side there is a sack of gold coins, and on the other side there is a mountain of diamonds. In front of you is a table set with a bounty of delicacies, yet you are dying of starvation and suffer from the stench.

Everything depends upon your perceptive Kli. You are in Olam Ein Sof, which never changes. Everything depends only on desire, and desire is built above an abyss that is constantly revealed to a greater degree.

Therefore, it is difficult for our children to feel a reason for living, specifically because they have everything. Baal HaSulam tells a parable about a king who put his son in a basement for 20 years and caused him mental anguish by showing him how everyone else was successful. Others are sitting in a bar or watching the World Cup, whereas you are sitting in a dark cellar full of mice, cursing your father.

This continued until the son discovered that his father was acting from the goodness of his heart and with great love. His father was suffering himself because he had given his son grief. Whereas if you give your children everything that they want from the goodness of your heart, this means that you hate them.

Question: Does it follow that I must intentionally hurt a child in order to educate him?

Answer: You limit him because you want things to be good for him, and you are willing to suffer in order to do this. You do this for his sake so that it will benefit him in the future. It will not be good for him now, as his ego desires, but will benefit him throughout his life.

Or, you want to feel good from the thought of how much you have given him. You think to yourself: “I couldn’t afford any of this in my childhood, so my son should enjoy it.” Is this what you call love?

Tomorrow you will have to give him many times more because otherwise he will not feel that he is alive. You must build a “basement” with great wisdom and put your beloved son in there, and you will suffer many times more than he will. In this manner, you will be preparing him for a good life.

So we have a method by which it is possible to advance towards fulfillment, towards goodness, not by feeling bad, but by being aware of it. This is a very special patent. It is necessary only to understand the principle and that is enough. Then there will no longer be a need to suffer. We are not ready to go through the way of difficult suffering.

The Creator made a special system in which it is enough for us to be aware of the evil that exists in contrast to the good, in order to accept it as a tool and sense fulfillment through it. After all, we are not ready to descend to minus infinity.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, “The Peace”: Rabbi Akiva depicts two kinds of people: the first are the “open store” type, which regard this world as an open store without a shopkeeper. He says about them, “The book is open and the hand writes.” Meaning, although they do not see that there is an account, all their actions are nonetheless written in the book, as explained above. This is done by the law of development imprinted in Creation against humanity’s will, where the deeds of the wicked themselves necessarily instigate the good deeds, as we have shown above.

The second type of people is called “those who want to borrow.” They take the shopkeeper into consideration, and when they take something from the store, they only take it as a loan. They promise to pay the shopkeeper the desired price, meaning attain the goal by it. And he says about them, “All who wish to borrow may come and borrow.”

And if you say, “What is the difference between the first type, whose goal comes to them from the law of development, and the other type, whose goal comes to them by self-enslavement to His work? Are they not equal in attaining the goal?” In that regard, he continues, “and the collectors return regularly, day-by-day, and collect from a person knowingly and unknowingly.” Thus, in truth, both pay their daily portion of the debt.”

It says that the righteous inherits double and the wicked lose double. After all you work and acquire vessels. You cannot remain the same way you are since the press of evolution is getting nearer whether you want it or not. If you are ready to run ahead in order to acquire the right vessel and discover the next world in it, go ahead. If not, then you are using an egoistic vessel that is very small. It seems that it is a great desire that can oppose the vessel of bestowal but in fact the size of our ego is not suitable for bestowal because it is isn’t deep enough. The Kilpot (shells) are merely a replica of Holiness.

Question: Can we say that paying the debt is the attainment of the ultimate goal?

Answer: Paying the debt is the ascent up the spiritual ladder. When a person ascends the ladder it makes no difference where he is exactly because he doesn’t take himself into account but rather takes into account how to delight the Creator. If, for example, the Creator prefers that he should remain in smallness now and serve others, that he should go through different states, then a person gladly looks for such an opportunity.

Spirituality is bestowal in which there is no egoistic account. Therefore, it makes no difference what state I am in. I value and measure everything according to the opportunity to delight the Creator, the group, or the friends. On the one side of my inner scale there is the group, the friend, and on the other side I measure my ability to do something for them. My self is actually to what extent I can bestow unto others. I only have a point in the heart and I weigh how I can delight the group, humanity, the general soul, or the Creator. The ego is erased and I disregard it, although my point is in it. This is the reason it is called the point in the heart, since my heart is an egoistic heart.

Question: I understand the idea of delighting the friends, but how do I take the Creator into account if I don’t perceive Him yet?

Answer: I begin to see my friends as one whole. When I get closer to the idea of one, I distinguish the force of unity in it.

We are all units (1). There are seven billion units living in this world (7 X 10⁹), but I am drawn to unity, and if I reach it at least in a minimal level (1/125), I become equal to one, to the Creator. In other words, my vessel becomes similar to the Light.

It is because the vessel and the Light are the same. I don’t perceive anything on the outside. I always discover the reactions of my vessel, its impressions and its experiences. Therefore when the desire agrees to connect, it is the Creator for me.

Question: So why is it so important to delight the Creator and not the friends? Why is the emphasis on the Creator?

Answer: Because you have to discover His basis in the vessel, the force that operates in the created being, the one who operates your vessel. You have to adhere to it, to the Keter. We don’t attain Him and therefore we discover the commandment of love through actions. You attain something that is above you. When the human level adheres to the Creator it attains a much higher state. It isn’t just adhesion, but it is the internality of the idea of the Creator is revealed here.

We don’t know what comes after that, but apparently this is only the beginning of our evolution…
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/28/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Shamati #108, “If You Leave Me One Day, I Will Leave You Two” 

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The Book of Zohar, Selected Excerpts — “Divinity,” Item 228

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Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom,” “Pleasure and Pain”

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Within the connection an additional force is concealed. All ten of us together are equal to one Elyon (Upper One). That is how the law of evolutionary and developmental steps works in nature.

Through connecting everyone on a lower level, an evolutionary leap to a higher level happens, and there the connection is made again and again, followed by a leap in development and a breakthrough to the next level. This is how it is all the time. It is a physical law of nature.

Thus we  have emerged as human beings with all our strength, intelligence, with the human body and all of its fibrils and cells—only through the power of unity, the power of connection. Without it, nothing would have happened. Starting from the Big Bang and onward, only the power of connection has been at work.

Start to work with what you have, and you will see that you can convince people. Don’t say that you haven’t been given enough tools for the correction of the world. It is not true! In the meantime, if you don’t feel what sort of means you are holding in your hands, begin to work, and you will see that these means exist. The audience will agree with what you say even before you agree with yourself.

You will actually learn from the audience that this is the next stage. Even though you are on a higher level, in your lower part, in your AHP, you are more coarse than the people you are going out to. They are more refined because they are found in GE.

This is a paradox, an internal contradiction. You are on their level with your receptive desires (AHP), and they are on the same level with their Kelim of bestowal (GE). Although they are on a level lower than yours, they discover desires within themselves that are more refined than yours. You are coarser, and essentially, more of an egoist than they are. Yet, the fact is that you want the Creator and not mundane things.

They agree with what you say to them more rapidly and more easily than you agree with the statements yourself. About this, it is written, Talmud Babyli, “Ta’anit,” 7a: I learned much from my masters, more from my friends, and even more from my students.” You receive back from them precisely what you said to them yourself. They bring you evidence, intelligence and emotion, and you finally will begin to understand, feel and be stimulated by what you told them.
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From the 2^nd part of Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/14, Writings of Rabash

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Education means feeding the students from one day to the next with a certain portion of material in quantity and quality. The quantity and quality change every day according to the changes that you want to bring about in them from day to day. This means that the changes that take place in people and the changes in the material must be mutually synchronized, as one affects the other.

We must establish an open university that will provide a simple daily portion on TV and the Internet. Education cannot be completed in five sessions but should be a continuous process. We must take that into account because this is our job.

It involves updating the material, songs, and clips daily, in order to keep shooting at one point until an opening is made in the heart of stone, and a deficiency is created.

Question: Does a person need to be aware of the fact that he is undergoing an educational process?

Answer: Yes, he should know that. After all he is taught in order to adapt to the upper force that manages his life or his death and arranges his existence in all the worlds. Thus, he learns how to succeed at every moment in both small and great matters.

We should not conceal anything from people, as it is written, “For they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” Otherwise, we will be like those about whom Baal HaSulam writes who conceal the wisdom of Kabbalah from the Israeli nation, thus keeping them behind an iron wall.

We must open people’s eyes. We will be surprised by the depth at which people’s perceptions will suddenly open up, although today they may seem totally blocked and interested only in food and football. This will be despite the absolutely corporeal passions that occupy them today.

All of this isn’t their fault but is a result of the concealment that everyone is in these days. There is a curtain placed before them that creates a shadow, and they say that there is no sunlight. If the curtain is removed, they will say, “Wow, it turns out that there is sunlight!”

What they say now is a result of the concealment;  a person is a consequence of the upper providence.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Writings of Rabash, “Steps of the Ladder,” Article 37

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The Book of Zohar, Selected Excerpts — “Israel,” Item 39

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Question: In what way can we pick up the community outside a convention if an event of this kind requires much larger material investments than we have? How can we get everyone to sit in circles?

Answer: Whatever we do, we need to pick people up so that they won’t need to come in under the pressure of troubles and blows from nature, but only for the good life. How does one do this? Rack your brains and search. We need to do this. We have no choice. We must search for how to reach people in good times, so the bad times won’t come, God forbid.

I don’t think that it is necessary to make any entertaining television programs with a “treasure hunt.” I think that a form like this only hides the truth instead of attracting someone to it. It doesn’t seem to me that we can be successful in this way. People will only follow the story line and won’t pay attention to the inner message.

First of all we must describe our present situation, develop it to a dramatic state, and then show how it is possible to avoid suffering, and more than that, reach success. This is the task of dissemination.

For this need, I think that it is best to put out a small and accessible booklet with explanations. In the last twenty years television and the Internet have evolved so furiously that they have pushed everything else out so that we want to see everything on our screens. But I think that after the initial enthusiasm and excitement for this new kind of media, people will go back to reading again.

This is because reading can organize the mind in a form that not even a picture can. When we are reading, we get information through which we can organize and change our thinking, our brain cells, and our approach by ourselves; meaning that we are formatting ourselves.

It is impossible to convey such information through the ear because it doesn’t penetrate this way. Only a very small percentage can be absorbed through hearing, as well as through seeing. In particular, information is grasped when one reads. Letters are something that we cannot let go of. The truth must be written.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/6/14, Writings of Rabash

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