Question: How can we build the correct intention with respect to the group? How is it expressed? How can one understand that he is in the correct intention?

Answer: The intention relative to the group should be very simple: I came to the group to get rid of my egoism, to rise above it, to adhere to the Creator, to reveal my next level, become a human being. This is how I should view the group and do everything that leads me to this goal.

We need to remember this and to adhere to this rule. Moreover, I do not look at the faces, characters, anything; I do not care; they can say whatever they want. First of all, I want to eliminate my “I,” I just want to go along with them. And then, we will move on.

I can actively engage in the work of the group above the fact that I have annulled myself only after I have succeeded in elevating them. Usually people start to enforce everything with their egoism, begin to change everything by force, as it is customary in our world. It cannot happen in the group.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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During the time of the Hanukkah holiday, it is obvious that today the world requires the same kind of correction that was once achieved as a result of the Maccabean revolt. It is a spiritual war for the sake of finding “a jar of oil for the sacred fire.” It means that we unite together and reach the minimal connection that is sufficient to combine the sparks that are present in each of us, merge them together, and end up being as one burning candle, as a jar of oil for the lamp.

Then, one candle will light all other candles, thus rising above this world, which is denoted by the eight candles of the Hanukkah lamp. This is exactly what we are supposed to do at the present time. The holiday of Hanukkah is a symbol of the Maccabean revolt against the narrow-minded approach of the world, huge egoism and protectionism, isolation and separation from each other. The world tries to live by the rule: “Every man for himself,” and people don’t know what to do next because this statute leads them to crisis.

We don’t know where this world is headed. We feel as little children who are lost and don’t see the way out. Until recently, this world was governed by egoism that took a very primitive form: money and power. People regarded themselves as big, strong, important, and powerful.

Today, they have lost control over the world and have no idea what will happen to them tomorrow. Old liaisons are destroyed. The world cannot be controlled by military might or financial means. The most influential people of this world lost control over others and seem to be quite helpless.

Under these circumstances, we have to expand Kabbalah dissemination and make it as extensive as possible. This wisdom was transferred from one generation to another and finally reached us. It was brought to us from ancient Babylon, which at that time was experiencing precisely the same conditions as we are now. Today, we have to make the same correction that Abraham did.

However, Abraham laid the foundation for all faiths and religions; it was adequate for their developmental level at that time. Our time requires using his power at a higher level to raise the entire world to a spiritual degree. At that time, this methodology served the purpose of evolving the world, whereas at this time, it has to finally correct it.
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From the Weekly Torah Portion 12/4/12

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Question: Why, according to the whole historical process, does the rescue come as a result of big pressure, at the most difficult moment, after a long time that we were preventing ourselves from hearing about it? For what purpose are all these difficulties?

Why is it required to reveal the Creator, the connection between us, in such torments and tension that we see ourselves at a dead end and only at the last moment, suddenly the answer is revealed? Why wouldn’t we all begin to occupy ourselves in the integral education, in the wisdom of Kabbalah, and walk comfortably toward the goal by having such a solution in hand?

Answer: You know yourself that our ego is working as “help against us.” And only under tremendous pressure do we agree to separate from it. And also this is not immediately, but only after many blows— the ten plagues of Egypt, in darkness, under terrible tension, and in haste—are we finally willing to escape from it. Otherwise, no.

And this is not because we are so weak, but because the ego is very strong. This ego helps us later to reveal the whole eternal spiritual world. Once we connect, we immediately begin to reveal and feel it. Right here in this life we reveal the upper world; about this it is said: “Your world you will see in your life.” I hope that we will reach it.

If we will now perceive all this pressure as force that is given to us precisely as help, then we will see that it works on our side. One needs only to receive it in understanding and we will succeed.
[95055]
From Weekly Torah Portion 12/4/12, The Zohar

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Question: The group’s responsibility is to constantly take care of the greatness of the Creator and the importance of the goal. From practice, we see that when we are experiencing a general ascent, for example, the preparation for a convention, then this work is done enthusiastically; everyone is ready, everyone is agreement, and everything is fine. But as soon as egoism grows, then everyone is weighed down with excuses, important things, just not to engage in it. How can we overcome this?

Answer: Each lesson should be the next step. If I had not felt this, I would not have the strength to come to the lesson every day.

Every day I have to see renewed people, that is, the same faces but different in content; they could be in descent, in ascent, but different.

These are not just faces, but a huge mass of people. After all, I do not remember anyone’s face, I do not remember names because I feel only their qualitative changes. I feel those who are on-screen and off screen, those who are present, together, with us at the lesson: There are hundreds of thousands of people.

Recently, we conducted a survey in Israel of who watches our TV channel. We got incredible figures. It turned out that hundreds of thousands of people watch us. And I feel all this mass. But it must change, and this brings me to a state of readiness.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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We need to understand that the eternal particle of the soul exists in its potential in every one of us if we unite with the others. It is one for all of us and is initially created as such. If, however, we don’t feel that we exist in one collective whole, this means that none of us has this soul and all we have is just our animalistic nature.

The soul is also called “Adam”—from the Hebrew word “adame”—similar to the Creator.

The desire to receive is totally opposite to the desire to bestow; it wishes to receive, not give, but at the same time, if it realizes itself against its own nature, it becomes similar to the Creator. Its similarity lies in the core of its action, not according to its nature, but according to how it transformed itself. This is its inverse, corrected state and is called the soul or Adam.

It is also called “Shechina.” This is a special word, from the Hebrew word “Shochen,” meaning a place of dwelling, settlement, residence. It is the place where the Light descends to and fills it up.

Thus, there are various names for the soul depending on which of its aspects are being discussed. But generally, no matter what is being discussed, it is the only subject matter: this collective soul, the only one that exists, besides the upper force. And we are its corrupted part and don’t understand where we are. We are in this soul but in a broken state, and that’s why we can’t say that we have it in us. Respectively, all our work is aimed at one goal: only to correct and find ourselves in this reformed state.

There are many people in the world whose parts in the collective soul have been corrected. These parts are called “particular souls”, and they are assisting us.

There is circulation of souls: Every instant a person passes through certain states even if he hasn’t yet entered the spiritual world, meaning that he hasn’t found his part in the common soul and hasn’t become Adam in general, hasn’t linked with this whole system; that is, he is not yet its active part.

This is an enormous egoistic system containing all the egoism of the universe and working on bestowal, in sync with the upper force, with the Creator. They connect, receive from each other and bestow to each other, and between them, a complete contact occurs, a so-called adhesion. One way or the other, we are in this common soul in everything and always, although we are moving toward our goal either willingly or unwillingly; that’s the difference.

People who live in our world without any understanding of it, move around unaware of and yet according to the program of creation. There is nothing that could break the confines of the law of the collective creation. This program is concealed from man, but he doesn’t understand where he is going and what he is doing at any particular moment in time. Suddenly something pushes him, and he acts, instinctively or seemingly conscious. None of us can see what strings we are being pulled by.

Why did one suddenly wish to act this way, think this way, or got into this trouble—we don’t understand. Only having risen over our state of existence and observing ourselves from aside, like a mother watches her child, will we be able to work on ourselves, on our egoism. Then, we will feel when we are being pulled by the strings, and maybe we will be able to pull them ourselves.

This is our development; I come to a state where before I am pulled, I will pull myself. Thereby, I engage the Light to affect me instead of the Light coming to play with me. This is a crucial turning point in a person’s work on his transformation, when he begins controlling his own development.

This, essentially, is what we are striving for: to be handed the governing force and to govern with it on our own. When the Surrounding Light is in my hands, I can engage it and make it affect me as necessary. In that case, I govern my soul; I am equal with it. This is the aim of our development in the group. Because essentially, the group represents the soul for me in a “material” form. If I connect to the friends, I connect with the collective desire, which, actually, is the soul.
[95247]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Question: Why does Baal HaSulam say that a person is thrown from the friends to the teacher and back again like a “slingshot” and by that the right vessel for receiving the Light is built in him?

Answer: A person receives wholeness from the teacher and through the group he discovers his evil. Despite his reluctance, he is incorporated in the group and makes great efforts to become part of the environment and to connect with the friends.

Thanks to that, in response to all his efforts, he discovers aversion, hate, and anger. This is how his egoistic desire is revealed in him; it isn’t his friends that he sees, but himself in the friends, as if in a mirror.

When all these negative feelings are revealed, the question is to what extent he acknowledges that this evil is revealed in him and not in the friends. At the same time he comes to his teacher, to the lesson, and receives treatment from the teacher, a correction.

If he has the right connection with the Rav and with the study, he has to come out white. As all the evil that he felt towards the friends takes on an opposite form, and he understands that it is in his favor. Instead of cursing he now gives thanks for it. Instead of feeling the evil in the friends, he feels good; instead of feeling good and proud about himself, he now feels bad. This means that everything turns upside down.

The opposite definitions that he now understands and feels in his attributes compared to the friends is called “a slingshot,” reverse, a trigger.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Let’s say, someone has wronged me. I turn to the Creator, ask for love, and through the prism of love, I try to look at the offender: He is great and this is the manifestation of my uncorrected properties. Should I talk about this with the offender?

Answer: The offender has nothing to do with it. Here is the Creator who manifested Himself in this way. But this is not about forgiveness.

If you decided to respond to this action of the Creator, based on the fact that you desire to unite with Him, you can protect yourself and strike back at your attacker. But first of all, try to see contact with the Creator, to see a manifestation of the Creator in the offender and any other object or situation. However, this does not mean that you have to forgive him. No! In the end, you have to build the same relationship with him as he is with you against your egoism and against him.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 20: You are carved … on my heart, all day and all night and like incinerators of thirst after your goodness and your wholeness, and the Creator knows what exertion and powers I have given on your behalf, and you are sure that it will not be in vain and God’s word will be eternal.

From this day onwards we will grow stronger in the Torah and the Mitzvot (commandments), “like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load” to raise Divinity from the dust, and the sins will become merits, since His honor will fill the land. And thank God, I am very sure that our salvation is soon to be revealed, and we will be rewarded to worship the Creator together, in expansion and God willing, we will succeed.

Baal HaSulam writes about his investment in his students and about his helping them. However, in the spiritual world, in contrast to the corporeal world, the lower has to make efforts so that the upper can help him.

In the corporeal world, a baby is naturally attached to his mother first by the umbilical cord in the womb and then to her breast, to her body, and so he receives her treatment. Nature forces him to annul himself this way. He doesn’t make any efforts on his part. On the contrary, he feels that his mother is the source of his life, and he is inclined to adhere to her.

However, in the spiritual work, we have to do this action against our ego, toward the group, the teacher, and the Creator. Only to the extent that we annul ourselves will we receive nourishment from them, either through what we call a “spiritual umbilical cord” or through the spiritual breast of the upper Partzuf, through the Surrounding Light and the Inner Light.

So, if a teacher writes that the students are carved … on my heart all day and all night, it means that they also have made a great deal of work in order to reach such a mutual connection.

What exertion and powers I have given on your behalf, this is possible only if the students allowed the teacher to bestow upon them. If a baby refuses to eat, how is it possible to force him? Here, it is a matter of his own freewill.

First, his freewill is only in annulling himself. Then, it is also in agreeing to accept the bestowal from the upper, which is always in contrast to one’s own mind and feelings. It is a very big problem. Even to just annul yourself and to accept everything as Hassadism isn’t easy. The embryo is in the waters of Hesed, but it isn’t simple to receive everything as Hassadim in total self-annulment.

So, a student should begin to accept actions that are opposite to his feelings and his mind, and to accept them in order to see the upper’s grace in the greatest sufferings, just like Rabbi Akiva in his painful death.

This isn’t simple at all, and we have to prepare ourselves for that. The main thing is to want that our attitude to what is happening with us will change. We are required to ask and to beg, to pray, so that we will be able to justify everything that happens, and to receive the Creator’s actions upon us with love and to ask for help in order to adhere to the group, to the teacher, and to the Creator so that love will cover all our sins.

This work is called like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load. We must constantly feel that There is none else besides Him, and the vessel for this feeling is our connection and love. This is why it is called the great rule of the Torah.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12

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Question: The article, “There Is None Else Besides Him,” speaks about the need for making our own efforts in the spiritual work, but all the states come from the Creator. When can we become independent?

Answer: Our independence is expressed in becoming similar to the Creator from within our egoism, thus including in us two opposing forces. If you take away the force of the ego, there will be nothing left of you. You will exist in Him like the starting point that He created as something from nothing, and will have no personal feeling of anything.

Initially, the Creator’s question was how to create an independent created being that is similar and equal to Him. This is what He does in all of creation.

We are committed to constantly try to attain a state of full adhesion with Him with the feelings and the mind that He summons in us.

Adhesion with Him means that both my feelings and my mind come from Him so that, through them, I will ascend above my ego and begin to actually feel His bestowal in me.

It is hard to express. There are no such words in our language.

On the whole, we have to yearn for connection with this only root, with this source—every moment, in every parameter, in every section, in the heart and the mind, in our desires and our thoughts.

Then, a new heart and mind will be created in us that work in order to bestow in a different coordinate system, in another dimension.

Only then will we begin to understand from what space this force operates. We will already enter this space, but only through systematic work on ourselves that brings about the recognition that everything in me and around me, everything, comes from Him at any second, at every moment.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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