Question: What prevents a person from reaching the prayer of society if he already sees that all his intentions are for his own sake?

Answer: The problem is that a person understands that his intentions are egoistic, but he is willing to tolerate that. That’s because he only sees how ugly these intentions are, but he doesn’t understand what kind of harm they cause him. This is the entire problem!

If I simply accept the fact that I am an egoist, then so what? But I have to feel how this is killing me. Only then will I be able to separate from my egoistic intentions. My own ego will separate me from the thing that causes me harm.

So at first, I separate from my egoistic thoughts by virtue of egoism itself. That means Pharaoh brings the sons of Israel closer to the Creator.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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The history of humanity is the history of egoism’s development. Today, we witness how egoism cannot bring satisfaction to people any longer. Previously, I yearned toward the future: I wanted to buy a car, a yacht, a plane, and so on. But now, profitable and promising desires do not surge in me anymore. After all, I always seek pleasure in something new, but there is nothing new left.

The sensation of fulfillment, pleasure in my desires, is in fact the sensation of life in me. If I do not feel fulfillment of a desire, there is no life either since the desire is dead. Thus, helpless, I am even willing to die so as to not feel this inner emptiness. This is the centuries-old script that propels us toward the future.

Nowadays, humanity subconsciously creates problems and confusion, and acts foolish solely to not feel the inner void. People are willing to fight, make revolutions, anything, in order to feel at least some fulfillment, no matter how negative. For instance, if I don’t have an appetite, I take something sour so as to feel an urge to eat something and enjoy.

If we don’t choose the correct course, such behavior will lead us to war. And we will succumb so that afterward we would feel somewhat better: Finally, we have something to live for. Indeed, why not to fight to refresh and renew ourselves?

It is a very big problem. Governments and media are very well aware of it. That’s why they keep trying to confuse the public by supplying all kinds of excitement for them that will prompt people to do something and receive satisfaction from it. Otherwise, people will face emptiness and will start throwing their leaders off their thrones, sweep away all borders, and commit suicide out of hopelessness.

It will be impossible to control them. How can one rule over a person who doesn’t care about or enjoy anything? So, one should understand that the public is being manipulated on a massive scale, including via the Internet. It isn’t an accident that it is has got such a boost, and it is hardly surprising that it is so accessible and strives to enter every home. It isn’t for us—it is so they may control us.

This is the only way to control people today, by showing them additional “sources of income,” meaning fulfillment. Otherwise, a person will be willing to do whatever it takes since life without pleasure loses all its value for him.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/21/2011, The Principles of Global Education

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Now is a time of serious economic processes taking place. The crisis is rising up again in a new wave and this requires the world’s elite circles to make decisions they are not ready to make. That’s because everyone will have to make the shift to limited consumption.

The consumer society is over! The Earth does not have the resources to support unrestrained development. The golden billion cannot offer its way of life and its ideals to the other six billion. And by that it evokes intense hatred toward itself as well as the desire of others to rob it.

Nature does not have the energy reserves for us to keep increasing consumption and among other things, that means we gradually have to give up nuclear energy. We unwillingly have to start becoming a society of “intelligent” consumption, meaning consume to the degree of necessity, where necessity means “sufficient for existence” in the modern conditions.

The modern political and economic elite have justified and legitimized their power by promising people increasingly higher levels of consumption. This is exactly the reason why they cannot change the direction from ever increasing consumption to “intelligent consumption.”

Any decision said out loud will inevitably cause a drastic conflict in society and most importantly, distrust of the elite because in the any case society will understand that people’s income will no longer increase, that there are very difficult times ahead for us, and this will last a long time. Moreover, the consequences of this pressure in society are unpredictable….

A new ideology of development has to come forth, and it won’t be in the direction of consumption anymore. A new political elite has to be raised to suit the new ideology, and that elite will be able to change the system. Yet, the elite of the past won’t disappear. It will fight back. That is why it is necessary to provide a wide explanation of the objective laws that are being revealed to us, of nature’s limited resources, and the integral society. This will create wide ranging social support and a critical mass of interested people.

It is necessary to develop a wide social discussion about the objective need to replace the consumer society’s egoistic development with global, integral development that is in balance with nature, meaning one in which society consumes from nature to the degree that provide every person with the necessary and deserving existence. An intense the social discussion will enable a quick emergence of a large group of people who will gradually discern how to build society upon the new principles.

This will give rise to a new understanding of the methods to manage business and government, how to unite the ideological scheme with the governmental scheme, as well as to develop the concepts of the new governance and the ways of transitioning to it.

Closing comment: The “simplest” method of restricted consumption can be exemplified through a prohibition on advertising, which is “the engine of trade.” It is necessary to gradually prohibit advertising that compels people to buy an enormous amount of products that they don’t need at all, with the exception of the products that society determines to be necessary.
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Question: Can I motivate myself to unite with the friends by means of fear of suffering that will come in the future?

Answer: Suffering doesn’t affect the point in the heart! It affects my egoistic desire, my “donkey”! But it does not affect the human in me, my point in the heart. A person can only advance spirituality by moving forward out of his own free will.

Therefore, if I don’t develop the inner aspiration to move forward, meaning that I want to build the storage place for the upper Light with the help of the group, then I evolve as a mere animal that is being “kicked,” through suffering. These strikes make me contemplate: Why are they coming down on me, what did I do to deserve them, and why? Then I will probably start linking my point in the heart with the others.

Question: But how do I scare the human in me so I would get it to advance?

Answer: If you suddenly heard on the radio that our country is about to be covered by a radioactive cloud, your “animal” would start shaking at such tragic news. And you can receive a similar from the group.

However, we do not speak about what will happen to us because we do not advance by way of fear. We wish to move ahead by becoming conscious of the importance of the spiritual goal. The importance of the goal is quite virtual, intangible, and depends on how we depict it within. If we keep envisioning the goal as increasingly more exalted, then we will advance in accordance with that.

In other words, I am like a rabbit that runs after a carrot that is held in front of it on a string. Moreover, a human in me holds both the carrot and the string, while my “animal” is chasing it.
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From the lesson on Writings of Rabash on 3/18/2011

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In our world “pretense” sounds like something dirty. We scold people for this, “Why are you so unnatural? Why do you pretend and lie?”

But in our case, we are pretending or playing with the most natural and authentic actions because they help us to rise above the material world. As I “play” spiritual states, I imagine myself there and elevate myself to them.

I don’t just want to entertain others by transmitting my joy to them. Joy is not simply laughter, but fulfillment by confidence and the correctness of the path, the goal I believe in. And this joy gives me strength.

This is the same fulfillment that has to reign inside all of us by virtue of our unity, meaning in the true, corrected state, in the world of Infinity. By playing it, I make efforts to fulfill our common desire (the spiritual vessel or Kli) just like in the state of the world of Infinity.

This is a very exalted and worthwhile game which is reminiscent of the Creator’s game with the Leviathan (the mythological whale). The Creator, the desire to bestow, plays with the creation He created, the desire to enjoy, spinning it in all the different directions and filling it with the Light of Hochma.

That is how I want to fill our entire group’s common desire to enjoy with the Light of Hochma. That means I am playing with very exalted things, even though it appears like a very simple action that any person is able to make.

We have to understand that from a person’s perspective, this game is a very serious action. And our ego does not allow us to lower our pride in order to become part of this game and start carrying out these actions in relation to the group. Granted, there are people who find this easy to do externally, as well as others who find it easier to express themselves internally. But the inner work is every person’s obligation and has to result in an elevated mood being maintained in the group.

Externally things might vary. There are times when externally you have to pretend to be inspired all the time because if you are surrounded by “little children,” you cannot allow yourself the liberty of showing them the true state. However, if it is a group of advanced students, they can do the opposite; instead of playing externally, they can remain serious and even express their sadness in order to create an opposition between the internality and the externality. That is how the great Kabbalists of the past behaved. However, we are still small and have to play or pretend externally, expressing joy.

Naturally, all of our dissemination must consist of programs that bring joy and leave people in a good mood. There should be fewer songs that are sad and sorrowful, and more happiness! We have to feel the heart of the friend or of the wide audience and take care not to bring them down or cause them to feel deep sorrow, but instead, to let them feel joy and unification. This is the entire wisdom.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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Writings of Rabash, “Love of Friends”: A man found him while he was wandering in the field and asked him, “What are you looking for?” To which he replied, “I am looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they?” … This is talking about a person who has veered off the path of the spiritual development, who does not know the true way there, who has already reached despair and thinks that he will never attain his goal. That is why he answers, “I want to be in the group where there is love of friends because then I will be able to ascend up the path leading to the Creator.”

That is how we wander around, not knowing how to reach the right state. We don’t understand how to establish the connection with spirituality and where to find it. However, in fact we are already in the spiritual world now, which is why we are wandering around this field. We already have the opportunity to establish a relationship with the group and to connect with the friends, but we are unable to do this. Thus, we walk by, like we are blind. We are already in the right place, but we cannot find this connection, as if we are wandering around in the dark.

This darkness is not outside, but inside of us, as a result of our blindness and lack of understanding. What’s missing here is some kind of epiphany in feeling and reason so I would understand in what form I have to connect with the friends. Then I will find how to make the breakthrough to the spiritual development, to the first contact with spirituality which is called “three days of absorption of the spiritual seed.”

For that I have to understand how to bind myself to the environment the right way, and that is the most difficult thing to do. In our world we know of cases when a woman is unable to get pregnant. And it is much more difficult yet to get into the spiritual world.

The Torah talks about the great problems of infertility that each of the fore-mothers had and how difficult it was for them to get pregnant. This is a symbol of how difficult it is to bind oneself to the environment.

How, then, is it possible to help a person who feels that he is lost and does not see any chance of advancing spiritually? He has put years into it and seems to know and understand everything, other than the direction. At first he thought that the knowledge he receives will help him, or some kind of actions, or maybe time will do the job.

But later he reveals that nothing helps him and then he becomes confused. That is when an angel comes to him and finally asks him, “What are you asking for? What are you looking for here?” Then the person checks himself and starts to understand that he lacks precisely the connection with the environment, “I am looking for my brothers!”

This is already a great attainment where you understand that you will be able to realize your spiritual development only on this path, inside of the connection with others. The group turns into a spiritual place. Instead of the material, physical group that he sees now, he will feel the inner connection between everyone and will turn this connection into mutual bestowal. He will reveal the net connecting them, which is called the system of the upper worlds, and all of the worlds will enter it.

This group will become the place where he will gradually reveal all of the spiritual levels, until he will come so close to the other 125 levels that he will unite with them into one whole. This will be called the end of his correction (Gmar Tikkun).

If a person begins to feel that he will be able to realize his spiritual development precisely in this way, through the relationships with the environment, this means that he is wandering around the Creator’s field and looking, while knowing what to look for and what to ask for. He still has to go through a difficult road up ahead, but this point where he decides that the spiritual world can only be reached through unity with the environment is extremely important. That’s because it is opposite to all of his previous, material, egoistic development.

This point marks the beginning of his development and his connection with others “from himself outwards, for the sake of bestowal.” Therefore, this point is the beginning for the new path.
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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While researching nature, we study many phenomena that take place in front of us and inside of us. To bring them to a common denominator, we can say that any species and any part in nature takes care of its own existence. And the more it takes care of itself, the higher is the level of its development. That is how the vegetative level of nature originated from the still level of nature, and the animate level came from the vegetative, and man came from the animate level of nature.

We understand from the science of Kabbalah that this did not happen by itself, but by means of Reshimot, the “developmental genes” that are successively realized one after another within the framework of the initially fixed model.

All of this exists inside the aspiration for self-benefit. The program instilled in all of nature’s elements places one task before us: What should I do to feel good? Be it realization of evil, conscious progress toward goodness, force, speed, connection, feeling, or mind: According to its potential, every species aspires to goodness and detaches from evil. That is our nature.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels this nature is a "one way street”—urging us to act directly for our own benefit. But on the human level there is one more special action. Man is able to feel the neighbor, and therefore, he is willing to give something to his neighbor with the expectation of later receiving reward and pleasure. We have learned different ways to use the neighbor which don’t exist on lower levels.

On the still, vegetative, and animate levels there is only reception. But man also knows how to bestow to the neighbor in order to receive benefit for himself. Moreover, interaction with the neighbor is meant to eventually bring him much more benefit than regular reception. Otherwise he is simply unable to receive anything directly. But one way or another, in both cases, he acts for his own sake.

In principle, direct reception is a primate method for man. As a child grows up, he receives upbringing whereby we teach him to interact with the world, and usually that means learning how to use the neighbor in a way that avoids being harmed and that enables him to receive self-benefit at the end. This is human upbringing. If things are the way they are, then it’s best to take the neighbor into account. After all, often we wish to simply take, conquer, and steal without leaving a trace behind.

That is how our world is and that is why we only perceive what we receive inside of us. Our desire is limited and eventually it brings us to feelings of emptiness and despair.

But there is also another, opposite possibility—bestowal, where the tendency is away from myself, upwards, towards the neighbor, as well as away from myself, downwards toward myself, and then upwards toward the neighbor. In the first case I bestow for the sake of bestowal (Bina, Hafetz Hesed), and in the second case I receive for the sake of bestowal (the degree of love). This is called an exactly opposite calculation and it only exists in a human being.

Thus, we have two possibilities: reception with auxiliary bestowal or bestowal with auxiliary reception.
From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11 on Global Education

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Behind every word or phrase of The Zohar, we have to try to recognize forms of connection between man and his environment. In essence, this is exactly what The Zohar describes. There is nothing more in reality besides the forms of connection between a person and those around him.

Even now, when I see people and the walls of this room in front of me or hear the noises coming from outside, all of these are forms of connection between us. There is nothing besides these forces connecting us, which are forces of desire which appear this way to me in my earthly perception of reality.

In the same way, if we try, then we will begin to imagine other kinds of our connection, other forces which don’t operate inside reception, but inside bestowal among us. Then we will see that in reality, there have never been egoistic connections between us. We felt them like in a dream so that based on this illusory connection, which is opposite to the true one, we would recognize the true connection, the only one that exists in contrast from the illusory life—the desire to enjoy with all of its power.

After all, this desire existed only in order for us to transform it into the desire to bestow. The Creator supports it in this artificial form, but it does not have any real essence of its own. Only the force of bestowal exists in the world.

That is why The Zohar describes all the varieties of the force of bestowal to us, which we reveal in all the various forms, as well as the forces of reception standing opposite them, being the basis upon which the forces of bestowal are revealed in the process of man’s inner war.

This is the only thing we have to think about while reading The Book of Zohar, making efforts so the revelation of these spiritual levels will help us and will become revealed in us so we will include them inside of us.
From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/23/11, The Zohar

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All of the events described in the history of Purim are hints at the corrections we have to go through. It’s important to translate these corrections from the poetic, colorful language of legend to the language of qualitative inner changes in order to understand that it is talking only about how to strengthen the connection between us.

In the beginning of the Scroll (Megila) it talks about the nation of Israel, saying that there is one nation that is dispersed among other nations. This means that egoism enters in between the people who aspire “straight to the Creator’ (Isra-El, Yashar-El). This ego that separates them brings this nation to the threat of annihilation.

But when the nation of Israel (meaning all of us who aspire to the Creator) understands that it is necessary to unite together, and they make actions for the sake of this unity, then the force of Mordechai ascends and the force of Haman falls, and we are able to take control over our egoism, over the hatred that separates us.

Each of us contains our own Haman, and we can “hang him up on the tree”—on the tree of death which turns into the tree of life. That is how we reach the revelation of the Creator. Megilat Ester (the Scroll of Esther, “the revelation of the concealed” because “Megaleh” means to reveal, and “Ester” means concealment) conceals and reveals the Creator. By working with these forces called Mordechai and Ester, we attain the revelation of the Creator.

The Creator, the upper force, is never mentioned directly in the Megila. It talks about the King Ahashverosh, but not about the Creator because He is concealed as a result of the filling of uncorrected Kelim. The Creator is only felt in the corrected Kelim as their mutual bestowal. The same love that we feel for one another in our uncorrected state is the revelation of the upper force, the Creator.

When we read Megilat Ester, what is important isn’t simply to decipher which spiritual qualities hide behind which characters: Where are Zeir Anpin, Malchut (Queen Esther), what she conceals and how she joins Zeir Anpin, and Mordechai (Bina). Mordechai is the quality of bestowal, Bina, whereas Haman is all the impure worlds of ABYA, the impure desire, Klipa, the snake, the “monkey” instead of the human (a monkey, Kof, is written as the letter Kuf, a long line that descends beneath the line of the letters like a monkey’s tail and nourishes the impure desires). Yet, the most important thing is to find which feelings are signified by these notions in the relationships between us.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/20/11, Shamati

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Question: How can we ascend above all the quarrels in the group before the convention?

Answer: When preparing for the convention, you have to see how all of these conflicts are given to you as “help against Him,” how Pharaoh rises up and asks, “Who is this Creator for me to listen to His voice?”

The Creator tells you to unite with the friends, while the Pharaoh tells you to disunite! The Creator says, “Give in!” While the Pharaoh says, “No, you have to rule over them with an iron hand!” The Creator says, “Work joyfully,” while the Pharaoh says, “No, you will work dejectedly and enslaved to me.”

These two forces argue within a person when he reaches the “ten Egyptian plagues” as he discerns which of them is right. I have to understand that I determine which of them will take the upper hand and rule—the Creator or Pharaoh! Everything depends on me.

This is the most decisive point, and I am standing in the middle between these two parts of reality: the positive and the seemingly negative, which were prepared for me in this form in order to give me the freedom of choice. I have to decide that I want for the force of bestowal, love, freedom from egoism and ascent above it to assume power.

I am ready to accept the blows falling on Pharaoh and egoistic Egypt, and I am happy about them. Let the blow fall upon me because it is hitting my egoism, helping me to be freed from it, to ascend above it and no longer be inside of it. After these blows, I already come out of Egypt and am no longer enslaved to it!

Yet, a person shouldn’t work on himself, but in relation to the environment, the group. He shouldn’t correct some kind of qualities inside of him, but his attitude to others. The most important thing here is not to get confused and not to change the direction of one’s efforts.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/11, Preparation to the WE! Convention

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