Question: How do we work in the group to focus our intention and to achieve the right desire to ascend?

Answer: We have to imagine the ascent from our world to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) as something that is attainable now, at this very moment. We constantly play it in the group and in the workshops. We constantly imagine it as the desirable state. I want to be constantly included in it; this is my goal in every movement I make. Only if we imagine this goal do we summon upon ourselves the good and beneficial influence of the Surrounding Light from it.

It is a physical law. To the extent that I yearn, I summon the force of the Light upon myself, and it operates and influences me and corrects me by drawing me to a new state.

Question: So does this means that we have to see our friends as great, even if I don’t agree with them and don’t feel that they really are so?

Answer: Of course! What does agreeing or not agreeing have to do with it? Who am I? I am a small, worthless, uneducated person, who has no attainment of the spiritual world. I criticize my friends because I feel comfortable with that, out of my egoistic attributes. It seems to me that they are all wrong and that they are all bad. Of course, I mustn’t accept what I see and hear as the way they really are.

On the contrary, I have to understand that my ego is between me and my group. I see them through the ego and receive everything from them through it.

This means that the questions of who they are and what I receive from them have no solution until I annul my ego.

But when I annul it, I will be able to see what is before me. Then I will see that it is the Creator! Not the friends, not the group, but the Creator! I will see a totally perfect state.

Now, when I am detached from them, inside my ego, when I am in a kind of an egoistic cocoon, how can I judge anyone?
[95085]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Question: The general ego is growing during the study of the wisdom of Kabbalah. It turns out that we seem to accelerate the growth of the ego. And as long as we delay the connection between us, humanity is becoming more egoistic.

Answer: The ego is not transferred from us to humanity. It does indeed develop sharply, but it is in us. To the extent that you aspire and yearn for the love of friends, you feel that you hate them and are rejected by them. Those who do not yearn for spirituality don’t feel anything. They have the ordinary corporeal animal egoistic urges, and nothing more than that.

If I strive forward to the “plus” with the friends and attain let’s say “plus one,” I immediately feel “minus one.” But if I am on level zero, on the initial corporeal level, I am just an animal. This means that it is an ordinary corporeal ego.

Spiritual ego is a totally different matter; it appears only in order to push me to an even stronger connection with the friends in the group. First it all seemed okay, fine: “Let’s connect guys!” We rent a place, everyone is burning, everyone is working. Suddenly we feel that we cannot even look at each other. This means that a negative spiritual level has started, and that’s a good thing.

Now is the time to rise above it, to rise to the next level “plus two.” And then again “minus two” appears.” And thus, over and over again. Without this zigzag we would not develop.

Can you imagine what ego people who rise have, like Rabbi Shimon’s students who wrote that they were ready to burn each other?

When you reach such a level, these attributes appear in you. So we have to establish an environment. You will not be able to attain this level without a strong group to support you and direct you. It “shakes” you when it is necessary so that you will wake up and see where you are; it obligates you and the others to perform your duties in the group, pulls you to dissemination, wakes you up at night, etc. It is impossible to advance without it.

At first a small ego appears in the group. But if the friends don’t notice it, if there isn’t someone who can help them, the group falls apart. There are many such groups. I hear about it occasionally.

So, we should actually be happy that serious signs of the spiritual advancement appear. This is already spiritual egoism.
[95020]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Question: What is the work in the middle line and how can I feel it?

Answer: The middle line doesn’t actually exist. After all, there are two forces active in nature: the force of bestowal (in red) and the force of receiving (in black). A person is neither one of them. The two forces emanate from above. There is the force of bestowal that created the force of receiving that is opposite from it. These two forces, let’s say plus and minus, exist in nature and everything stems from them: the still, vegetative, and animate. Man is of course a “spiritual creation” and exists in the comparison, in the connection of these two parameters inside him. 

The Masach (screen) is the plus, and the ego is the minus. Connecting them inside him correctly is above his ego, and by following faith above reason, a man stabilizes the middle line. This is the whole art.

This means that on one hand, I want to get closer to the friends despite my ego, since we discover the spiritual world only in the connection among us (the yellow part in the drawing).  And our ego (the black circles in the drawing) remains and grows even more.

Sefirot and worlds appear among us, in which everything is revealed. The upper world is external to us, external to our ego and above it, above the connection between us. Therefore, the whole wisdom of Kabbalah is based on the principle of “love thy friend as thyself.” Why? Because when you work on it, exit yourself, and build a kind of a sensor in the external form, you begin to feel the whole filling upper force. You may call it the Creator or the upper force, whatever you wish.

This is our work, and it is fulfilled in the middle line.
[95017]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 1

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Question: What is the difference between egoism in the spiritual world and egoism that we sense in our world?

Answer: There is no egoism in the spiritual world. It is a completely different “egoism,” which cannot be compared to ours. The egoism there is a force opposite to the force of love and connection. It is manifested precisely to the extent to which it can be used by a person as a basis for greater connection and unity; whereas in our world, egoism is the only force of the entire creation. It is simply material egoism just like animals have; however, it is more advanced.
[94892]
From the Virtual Lesson 12/2/12

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The vessels of bestowal that once were separated, fell to the vessels of reception, and now are found there, under their control. This state is called “exile” and it is expressed in the fact that the desire to receive is using the quality of bestowal in order to bestow in order to receive.

This means, “exile” is a spiritual concept, that is not simple. I reach it truly, when I know that I bestow to the Creator in order to receive pleasure from Him. I am all Klipa, and this is to say that I am in exile, on a very high spiritual level of tainted connection with the Creator. There are only two forces: to receive and to bestow. And I, the receiving force, received the force to bestow, I hold and use it for self-pleasure.

Today, however, I do not feel that I am in exile; to the contrary, I identify with the desire to receive. If I would identify with the desire to bestow, then I would have said that I am in exile, under the control of Pharaoh, meaning of the ego. Each time that I want to bestow, I would have suddenly felt that I act in order to receive.

We can divide the exile of Egypt into phases, according to the feeling of the exile. Baal HaSulam writes about it in his Letter 14: And the thing is that the measurement that the people of Israel thought that Egypt enslaved them and disturbed them from their work for the Creator, and in the same measurement they really were in the Egyptian exile. Everything depends on the “user,” the one that receives, feels. For example, when Moses killed the Egyptian, the Jews denounced him. They didn’t feel that they were in exile, but to the contrary, it is Moses and not Pharaoh making their lives hard.

So when the breaking happened, the vessels of bestowal, or the souls of Israel that are called Yasher Kel, meaning the intention to bestow, fell to the vessels of reception, to the intention to receive. But this thing itself doesn’t mean anything. We need clarification, the results of which we will be able to identify either with the vessels of reception or with the vessels of bestowal. If in Egypt, I identify with the vessels of receiving, I am blossoming, like Pharaoh, that is building beautiful cities, Pithom and Ramses, for him.

And from the other side, to the one that wants to reach bestowal, these are poor cities, cities of danger: “Maybe we will not be able to exit the control of the ego, the control of Pharaoh?”

Therefore, we must understand where we are. The one who has a point in the heart, the one who already yearns to the wisdom of Kabbalah, to the revelation of the Creator, he needs to always check himself: “What in me prevails now, the desire to receive or the desire to bestow? If it turns out to be the desire to receive, then I am a worker of Pharaoh; if the desire to bestow, then I am “Israel in exile.”

This is the first discernment, then from it, if one develops it, one finally exits the exile. As Rabash writes in Shlavey Sulam (The Rungs of the Ladder) (1985/1986),  Article 6: It is found, that exile is the state of the Kli, and redemption is the Light and bestowal. And precisely from within the troubles, when we feel that we are under this control, that the new vessel begins to form, with which one exits exile. There are no ready vessels; “vessels” are new discernments that we give birth to from the work in Egypt, in exile, the four phases, which eventually create a complete desire, that then feels that it became redemption for us.

Actually what is escape from Egypt? Who are you running away from? From the desire to receive? No, it remains as the desire to bestow remains. So why does Pharaoh invert?

In the first stage, the group of Abraham exits Babylon, meaning, from the desire to take advantage of the Creator for their own good. In other words, vessels of bestowal made a “restriction” on their desire to receive, which at that time couldn’t be corrected, and they separated from it. Later, this desire grew—Isaac appeared, who represents the “left line,” and he separated from Esau. Each time desire to receive is added to us, and we make clarifications and disconnect from it, leaving it for the future, until we will be able to work with it.

We only add to ourselves, to the intention to bestow, the vessels that we are able to correct.

So “Pharaoh” is a very big desire to receive that came after the people of Israel prepared themselves for the new stage. First they completed the next degree in the desire to receive called “Jacob.” Then the need to continue to grow was created, that is called “hunger in the land,” and they descended to Egypt.

In the beginning, Pharaoh was good and their life in the new place was good. They felt that the addition of the desire to receive did not disturb the desire to bestow. So at first, they managed in Egypt—they controlled their desire to receive. So it wasn’t the exile yet, but “seven years of satiation.”

And later, when the sons of Israel connected to the new vessel, it turned to the “seven years of famine.” The desire to receive continued to grow, and at some point, I am not capable of doing anything with it Slowly he “swallows me,” and puts me into the desire to bestow in order to receive. Pharaoh takes more and more from the children of Israel, and they are powerless against his control. This desire simply swallows them, like a crocodile, and nothing is left from bestowal, and Pharaoh grows. Finally, from within the total darkness, the point in the heart awakens in us—Moses that will take us out of Egypt.

This is the path of the desire to receive, and these are the typical discernments for it. The whole story is developed inside the desire. After exiting slavery in Egypt, we come to “Mt Sinai,” the mountain of hatred (Sina). This is the same Pharaoh, only in a different form. Later, again and again, we are faced with growing egoism. Each time in a different form, and this allows us to continue to make corrections.
[94321]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/29/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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Abraham’s group exited Babylon and became a nation. It reached its private end of correction at the level of the First Temple, the Light of Mochin de Haya. Immediately following that a descent occurred. In other words, a chain of exiles followed.

During the Babylonian exile, the people of Israel still remained at a spiritual level that was higher than at the time of the Egyptian exodus. Only after the Second Temple was destroyed, did it fall completely. First the bestowing vessels (the spiritual part of the nation) were shattered, then the receiving vessels collapsed, resulting in the desire becoming subordinate to the egoistic intention. In the first stage, the altruistic desire only changed its vector, but it didn’t break completely. In the second stage, the broken receiving vessels were included into the desire that belonged to the nations of the world, fully applying the pressure of exile on Israel, which now is coming to an end. Compared to the situation today, all previous exiles were just “temporary zigzags downward” and only at the last stage, the people of Israel were mixed with other nations and joined them in their genuine opposition to the Creator.

So, if all the other exiles were measured at the prior stages, the last one plunged Israel to the very bottom, depriving Israel of all spiritual Light. In Babylon, they still were a nation, although they were fairly disconnected. When Haman gave them the impetus to unite, Mordecai only needed the Light of Hassadim to bring the people together. But today, that would not be sufficient, since the shattering has penetrated much deeper and now requires a more powerful correction. At the time of Mordecai, Jews were detached in their bestowing Kelim, but they didn’t hate each other, and and it was very easy to reconnect.

In Shamati , Article 144,  Baal HaSulam writes: Haman said that in his view, we will succeed in destroying the Jews…, meaning that he can separate them even more and bring them to an even bigger egoistic desire that would lead their bestowing vessels to shattering and would force them to hate each other even more, thus making them subordinate to the receiving vessels. …because they are separated from one another; hence, our force against them will certainly prevail, as it causes separation between man and God. And the Creator will not help them anyway, since they are separated from Him. The law states: The Light cannot impact desires that are in the state of detachment.

This is why Mordecai went to correct that flaw, as it says: “the Jews gathered,” etc., “to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life.” This means that they had saved themselves by uniting. There is nothing but the force of unity and the power of separation. The latter is Haman, Pharaoh, etc., and the former is the righteous in every generation.

Hence, “exile” and “redemption” are measured by the level of unity or the level of separation. One should not imagine some periods of time, distances, or nations… The only thing that matters is unity: When the nation was more united, it was the level of the First Temple; when the unity weakened, it was the Second Temple; when the unity is even less than that, it is exile. Once again, our states depend on the degree of our connection.

The evil forces aimed towards disintegration elicit an egoistic desire in the people of Israel. Behind these forces, there is the Creator, because there is none else besides Him. He instigates these states to make people comprehend the heaviness of the burden they are carrying and make them go through multiple hardships in order to force them to wake up and rise to unity out of their helplessness and weakness.

So, the real exile happens when all bestowing vessels work for Pharaoh. They build the prosperous cities of Pithom and Ramses; they aspire to bestowal, but the results of their work are applied towards egoistic desires. It’s bestowing for the sake of receiving; it fills the “treasury” of egoism.

Even those who disagree can’t rid themselves of slavery, since egoistic profits keep them in their selfish shell and make them bestow for the sake of fulfilling their receiving vessels. Our desires keep growing, but they permanently stay empty. We spin our wheels until we begin screaming to the Creator; in other words, until the global crisis hits us. This is exactly what is happening now. Let us hope that we will be able to wake up the “Egyptians” and entice them to act.
[94134]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/27/12, “Exile and Redemption”

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The wisdom of Kabbalah consists of two parts: the concealed and the revealed.

“Concealed” means forbidden to reveal. And what is the point in revealing? Indeed, everything can be written in books, but what a person can get from them depends on the state he is in. Thus one of the parts of the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “concealed,” because it is revealed only after certain conditions are fulfilled as a person goes through the cleansing of his ego.

It is also called that way since the upper part of the world of Atzilut is inaccessible to us. Even if I learn about the smallest, initial level of the spiritual ascent and am still in the worlds of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria and only later enter the world of Atzilut, still, even the smallest level I am on, the first ten parts called “one level” (one level is made of ten Sefirot), already gives me an idea about all of creation, but in a minimal way, on a small scale. Then I rise and see, like on a map that I read on a larger scale, everything there is enlarged.

But being at the bottom, I cannot bring the concealed part, GAR of Atzilut, its upper part, close to me in any way, which means to depict it. I can imagine different lower levels more or less, and then too I am always wrong, since every upper level is a new attribute regarding a lower level. Still, I can somehow imagine it, but not the levels that are concealed or that are called secret. All the levels below them are called revealed and we can reach them all, anticipating in advance what revelations they will bring us.

The first Partzuf of the world of Atzilut is called Atik, from the Hebrew word “ne’etak” – “cut,” detached and cut off, from our attainment. The next Partzuf is called Zeir Anpin, and the upper part of its “head” is called Keter, or more accurately Kitra (in Aramaic), and this part is also concealed.

Everything that is below this part is gradually revealed to us: Kruma of Avira, Mocha of Avira, Mocha Stima. The structure of all these parts is very interesting, since it is from them, from the revealed part of the head of Arich Anpin, that the Providence descends into our world, that our fate descends.
[94499]
From a Virtual Lesson 11/25/12

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Question: How should the lower use the connection with the upper for correction?

Answer: The lower has to nullify himself in order to receive from the upper. It’s as if you are drowning in the river and someone throws you a rope so that you can hold on to it and reach the shore. For you “catching the rope” means reaching the initial level of equivalence of form. This initial equivalence of form is called annulment.

Later the work becomes more difficult. Although you have nullified yourself before the upper and have caught the “end of the rope” and you already have a link to it, you know that in order to start receiving in order to bestow, you have to create an inner deficiency in the link in addition to the self annulment and the simplest adhesion with the upper. Here a person has to act against his own opinion, thus inserting his deficiency into the upper and going through phases of Ibur (gestation). Otherwise, it will lead to nothing. “A man’s pride shall humiliate him,” and this is a very big problem.

In our work, the group has the role of the upper. It should be a concept, an idea, the embodiment of perfection in my eyes, since the actual connection is already an upper attribute. Here an addition to self-annulment is required: By nullifying myself I adhere to the upper, and by continuing the work of annulment, I determine the connection with Him.

In other words, by my initial self-annulment, I make a contact with the upper, with the group, with the teacher and the study. But in order to enter it, in order to receive from it, I have to nullify the “flesh” of my desire, layer after layer. This period is called “the nine months of pregnancy,” and eventually it will become a birth.

[94679]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/25/12, “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah”

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There can be different fears: for my condition in this world, for my relatives, and for the whole the world. But all these are corporeal fears that stem from the fact that a person isn’t connected to the Creator in the right way at the moment so that he could realize that everything is in His hands and that “there is none else besides Him.”

A person doesn’t understand that he is totally under the Creator’s control, and so he fears for himself in this world. Since he has no contact with the Creator, he feels that he and this world are detached from the upper force. He thinks that this world exists on its own.

Then there is another stage when a person begins to worry about the way things are in the next world: about himself, about his relatives, and about the world. This means that he separates himself and the world from the Creator, as if all these things exist separately from one another, and he looks for a connection between them that can ensure the best existence for him.

All this fear stems from concealment, so nothing can help except for advancing towards true fear, the fear of the Creator.

This is already a different kind of fear; it isn’t regarding this world and not the next world, and not about the reward and punishment in it. There is simply fear that remains in a person for now; he hasn’t totally discovered that the Creator controls all of His good creation and that he has nothing to ask for and nothing to worry about, not in the present and not in the future.

When he looks back at the past he is ashamed of his bad deeds. This means that he still hasn’t adhered to the upper Providence so that he can understand that there is none else besides Him, except the only Providence.

It turns out that the cause of all the fears is the concealment. Everything is determined only by our transition from concealment to revelation. There is no other criterion to assess our states. Concealment, an insufficient feeling of the Creator, and incomplete faith above reason, all lead to fear and worry.

This level is called “repentance of fear” and it is the intermediate level before wholeness. It must exist. On this level a person clarifies how many desires in which he feels this world are still disconnected from the only good, infinite Providence of the Creator.

He can arrange his desires faster if he connects more strongly to the group. Inside it he will always find the upper Light and himself operating, and he will process all his fears correctly so that every fear will advance towards wholeness as much as possible.

Complete fear is called the Light of Hassadim in the illumination of Hochma. He should approach such a fear gradually by his examinations. If he demands it correctly, he demands to know about all the interruptions, which means about all his desires and discernments in which he doesn’t yet resemble the Creator and in which there is no whole fear.

In the meantime a person is not in a state of whole fear, worrying whether he has the intention of in order to bestow, above all his vessels of knowledge, his vessels of receiving, but actually this is what makes up the complete fear. At the same time, worrying about this, about how great his bestowal is, which means above what thickness of the vessel that was revealed, he can rise and be in bestowal. This is how we reach complete fear.
[94763]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/4/12, “Introduction to the Study of the The Sefirot” 

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Question: Why does the desire, the fire in the heart, which was felt earlier, disappear? How do we support this desire? How can we keep ourselves in the desire to reveal the upper force, taking into account that we do not feel it?

Answer: The Creator gives us our primary aspiration to attain Him, pushing us forward with all kinds of troubles in this life, a feeling of emptiness, and pulling us with the expectation of revealing the truth, meaning. But we have to go further by ourselves. This initial push from behind and pull forward are temporary; do not expect that they will propel you forward all the time.

You have to cultivate this thrust forward yourself, and it can only come from the environment. You must build your group, your environment, so that it excites you, pulls forward, teases, so that you see friends who succeed and strive forward more than you do, so that you become jealous, envy them, so that they give you the importance of the goal, and you feel support in that from them.

In order to be impressed by them, you have to annul yourself. If you consider them greater, then even a small drive towards the goal that you see in them will seem great to you.

This is the basis of all Rabash’s articles about the group. The Creator gives us only the initial impulse and nothing more: the negative force from behind and a small attracting force forward, and only for a certain time. And then He begins to give us more and more egoism, the hindering force, so that we develop our own pull towards Him on this hindering force. You can get it only from the environment. That is why freewill is only in the creation of the environment suitable for us.

So, if we do this seriously, we will definitely reach the goal, but this is the most important thing, this is a guarantee of our advancement. So, I am very happy about our unity at the Siberian Convention where we will try to unite to feel our next state there, on the spot. It is before us; this is our next step. Let’s make it together, and it will bring success. “Let’s join our hands, friends, so not to be lost one by one.”
[94838]
From a Virtual Lesson 12/2/12

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