Question: You always say that people can advance through virtual study.

Then why is it so important for everyone to physically gather at the convention?

Answer: We operate in a huge and multifaceted world.

In other words, in relation to the upper force, the Creator, the force of bestowal that influences me, I can be everywhere and in different states: closer or further from the center, some virtually connected to the lessons, some don’t even have Internet and they read books, others are physically present at the lesson, some are members of outside groups, and some do not have a group nearby at all.

In other words, every person is where the upper governance has placed him or her.

According to the strength of the influence, the physical location of our convention is in the center of the circles, and everything else is either closer or further from it.

I need to understand that my presence at the central point during the three days of the convention provides maximum influence. This is why, if I have the freedom of choice to come and connect, I must come!

If I do not have the opportunity to go, I need to see where I will receive the strongest influence: in a regional group, or, if I am not able to get there, then watching the broadcast together with a friend, or alone at the edge of the earth, or maybe I am not even able to watch the broadcast, but only to listen…

But I need to find the strongest contact: this is my only freedom of choice.

If you are in the same area of the convention, you can stay at home and watch everything on the computer; this is your choice. But you should know that it is impossible to compare the experience of being inside the convention site to not being there.

You can also be an outside observer even inside the convention venue, or you can be in it with your entire heart and soul; this also falls under your freedom of will—“to receive the most influence from the environment.”

So see for yourself.
[24201]
From the lesson 10/19/20, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Its Essence”

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According to logic, there isn’t any freewill. After all, there isn’t any free movement; everything is controlled by the forces acting in nature and is subordinate to one upper force encompassing the entire universe.

If someone feels differently, it is simply due to the lack of knowledge of the general system. If I am within the system in which I was born and which defines everything for me, how can I be free from it? The general force of nature acts, leaving no empty space, for the entire system is closed and works as a well-coordinated mechanism; so where can it give me freedom?

There is no thought or desire in a person where the upper governance would not be present initially determining the person’s actions. Freedom begins when we wish to unite in the group with our points in the heart and begin to look for where we have free choice. We wish to establish a connecting field between us, the former place of the breaking. And this field, created with our ties, is the place of real freewill.

It is another dimension, which has never existed before, a completely new plane of existence. If we discover a new space that never existed in creation, we exit this world into some other dimension, another world. We can say that are immersed into creation deeper and deeper and discover a tiny hole through which the entrance to infinity suddenly opens to us.

In the same manner, having corrected the state of the breaking, we don’t go back to the initial stage that preceded it, but due to the fact that we have attained it through our freewill, we enter a new realm that never existed in nature: the realm of our freewill.

We build a state among ourselves that will serve as a spiritual vessel: a new vessel, desire, will to receive (Tarach), and in it a new Light, NRNHY, which is 620 times greater! The names that existed before the breaking may have remained the same, but their essence has become completely different.

This is why it is so important for us to find this point of our freewill where we will be able to break free into the new dimension.
[24551]
From a lesson 10/22/10, “The Freedom”

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Question: Can a person be free, and if so, in what ways?

Answer: First, you need to figure out what freedom is and what is being sought? Are we looking for freedom from the angel of death as it was carved on the tablets of the covenant, searching for eternal spiritual life, or do we believe that we can be free in our materialistic everyday activities?

Kabbalists explain to us that in regular life we don’t have any independence whatsoever, but rather all our life is already predetermined and each step is previously scheduled for us. Freedom is possible only if we rise above life to the decision making level, to the spiritual level.

This is where freedom of choice exists since there are two opposing forces at this level, receiving and bestowal; whereas within our world, there exists only one force, the one of receiving, which only allows us to accept more or less depending on our understanding of what we stand to gain or lose.

In other words, everything depends on our simple understanding of where we win or lose more. Thus, there is no such thing as freedom at all! I always weigh before deciding what to choose. After I evaluate the “cost” of something, there is no freedom of will left in me to go against it. My nature is tuned to maximum receiving and minimal giving. This is how we act in everything, consciously or not.

Sometimes it looks like we can go against our earthly logic, but it is an illusion since a deeper egoistic interest that defines our actions hides behind it.

But when we rise to the spiritual level and attain the desire to bestow, which works together with the desire to receive, we begin to have balance between these two desires and remain between them, in the middle third part of Tifferet, not leaning towards either side. We are not choosing what is more attractive to us, receiving or bestowal, otherwise it would not be considered an option, but rather depends on our evaluation.

Freedom of choice is possible only if I am between two forces, positive and negative (bestowal and receiving), and if I manage to set up myself between them as if I were an engine in the circuit.

Thus, I use both forces since I have freedom to build myself by including myself in both forces; this gives birth to a new reality. The free choice that we possess in spirituality allows us to build the Creator! The Creator is me but in a corrected state. That’s why He is called “Bo-Re” (come and see).

You build a new reality out of these two opposite forces. Before we reach this state, there is no freewill. There is no way to obtain freedom of choice by selecting from one force only or from two opposing forces; only if we manage to correctly connect them together do we get a third component called, “Adam  (Man)” or “The Creator.”

Our desire is made by a reverse imprint of the Light, so if it senses only itself, it turns out to be something dreadful!
[27100]

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Question: How do you attain simple faith?

Answer: Simple faith is absolute bestowal, Hafetz Hesed, when I try to be free of all my pragmatic thoughts, when I think about the friends and about the group and try to exist only in order to fulfill our connection.

The first phase is the minimal attainment of the level of mutual guarantee in the group. We begin to understand that different forces constantly are operating on us. Of course, they all come directly from the Creator’s trying to separate us and disrupt our connection, to divert our attention from thinking about the upper force, about connection, about unity, about the goal of creation, and about our obligations.

These forces arrive continuously in different forms, in different directions, confusing us, and dulling our senses. It isn’t in our power to resist them if there isn’t the right spirit in the group that can help us survive. Therefore, as it is written, “They helped every one his friend.” This is our obligation.

Otherwise, the days will go by, and everything will change, but a person will remain the same. So, each one must support the others and worry about them so that they will worry about him. A person cannot worry about himself since these forces operate on each one, pressuring him on all sides, trying to tear him from the others by forcing him to worry about himself.

The moment he focuses on himself, it is very easy to detach him from the goal of creation. It is because the real goal of creation is in the connection among everyone. Therefore the impure intentions are the Klipot; it is not thoughts that separate a person from the Creator. The entire world is ready to think about the Creator, to cry out to Him, to go and pray in different holy places. A person has no problem doing that.

The goal is unity, connection. As long as a person holds on to it, he is fine. However, the moment he breaks away from this form of connection, he is no longer a danger to the Klipot, and they leave him alone. He can study by himself, acquire knowledge, but that doesn’t disturb the egoistic forces. They allow him to observe all the Mitzvot (commandments) very carefully, everything but connection, everything but “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Everything else doesn’t disturb them. On the contrary, if he has no intention to advance toward the love of others, all the other actions pull him in the opposite direction.

So, when the point in the heart awakens in a person, it is important to know how to fulfill one’s freewill. The Creator brings a person to the good fate and tells him: “Choose!” And this is what a person must do, that is, understand that fulfilling the Reshimo (reminiscences) is only through connection.
[137432]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/15/14

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Question: Could it happen that I might bring harm to the world?

Answer: Certainly, you can cause harm if you don’t carry out the right actions that are required of you with intellectual and emotional participation in the system by free choice. Instead of this, you become a burden to the world. This is how you destroy it.

The right action is learning where your free choice is, what it is, and realizing it. This is what we are learning. Every day, you must make it anew and perform new acts of connection with others, and when you don’t take such actions, you cause damage. In other words, you don’t yearn to be in one heart with all the inhabitants of the world. You don’t make actions to see this connection as the most important thing in life.

Question: When Rabbi Shimon fell to the state of Shimon from the Market, did he cause damage to the system?

Answer: When a Kabbalist falls and rises, he doesn’t do any harm. Instead, he only brings benefit. By falling, he discovers a shortcoming that must be corrected. He reaches this shortcoming, Shimon from the Market, through his efforts and preliminary preparation. You don’t. There is a difference between preparing ourselves for the next action and not preparing.

Question: So, it follows that everyone in a group who falls harms it and condemns it?

Answer: No, it depends upon which person falls, as it is written, “For a righteous man falleth seven times, and riseth up again” (Proverbs 24:16), for this is a Tzaddik and not just some corrupted person. Shimon from the Market is a spiritual concept. This is a fall into such a depth like nobody before him has fallen or after him will fall, and from such a depth he can rise up and justify the entire creation.

If someone like a baby falls, we don’t consider the fall or the getting up. Everything depends upon preparation.

However, if a person whose time has come for correction destroys, instead of correcting, apparently he reduces the world to the way of “in its time,” causing war, disasters, a Holocaust. We have gotten all of this already through our failure to correct in time.

We could have prevented the first and second world wars with all of their horrors.

Even now, we can prevent the third world war. Indeed, we are in the generation of the Messiah, which gives us free choice. This is no longer the exile that we had to endure.

In the writings of “The Solution,” Baal HaSulam wrote: I have already conveyed the rudiments of my perception in the year. I have also spoken to the leaders of the generation, but at the time, my words were not accepted, though I cried out loudly, warning about the destruction of the world. Alas, it made no impression.

Now, however, after the atom and hydrogen bombs, I think the world will believe me that the end of the world is coming rapidly, and Israel will be the first nation to burn, as in the previous war. Thus, today it is good to awaken the world to accept the only remedy, and they will live and exist.

We hope that we can stop this slide into the abyss.
[137410]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/13/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Opinion (Vadim S. Rotenberg, Ph.D., professor at Tel Aviv University): “It is generally accepted that free will is one of the most important human values​​. But do we truly have free will? Does a person have free will? Can he act according to his own desires, or is his behavior completely determined by the conditions of his existence and the various environmental factors that affect him?

“On one hand, considering simple arbitrary actions (I want to raise a hand and I raise it), free will seems obvious. But this does not make people different from animals. The main manifestation of freedom is the personal choice of a variety of real possibilities.

“The factors that affect us often contradict each other or complement each other, and it is impossible to calculate the single algorithm of these relationships. Such factors include our beliefs, formed in the process of personal development, relationships with others, momentary impulses, and more.

“Freedom is not to ignore all of these factors, but to be able to form holistic behavior in interaction with them, which is aimed at the target. Ignoring them is not a manifestation of freedom from them, but arbitrariness. Arbitrariness is different from freedom of will is not merely by the absence of prediction of results of one’s behavior (this prediction may be wrong), but by at the lack of the very intention to make this prediction.

“Free will is the freedom of choice of many potential opportunities, and it is limited only to a holistic sense of oneself, one’s personality, one’s image of ‘Self,’ which does not make it infinite, but fills with meaning. It may seem paradoxical, but this restriction defines a person’s freedom of will as opposed to arbitrariness and to animals that have physiological feelings, but there is no image of ‘Self.’

“The human being may not be free from himself, but should be in the world with self-image. If a person has no feeling of himself and the image of ‘Self’ has not been formed, he has nothing to do with the freedom that is afforded to him; it will result in destroying arbitrariness, and fearing that he may choose dependence on others. It is a profound problem of personality.”

My Comment: There is no freedom of will in our world. It is possible only if a person has an opportunity to rise above the nature of our world (egoism), which completely determines our decisions and behavior. See other posts in the freewill category.
[136098]

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When a person begins to study, he needs to go through all of the stages and to rise and fall so that he will feel how they influence him. One must begin to work and to deal with it. It is not possible to shout out all the time: “Why have you forsaken me, why am I helpless again, in despair and in darkness?”

These states come from Above, and it is specifically with them, that I progress, provided I go through them correctly. I must receive a feeling of rising, awakening, strength, and support from the group and must work correctly against the darkness, i.e., to transform the darkness into light.

This darkness is good, since to the extent that there is darkness, I receive freewill. I can be free! And if the Light illuminates me, then I surely am within His bestowal. The Light is higher than me. It comes, influences me, disables me, and I become anything that He wishes.

I am like a puppet on a string that plays and jumps as long as my strings are pulled, which is by the Light. The darkness symbolizes that the master has let go of my strings and I fall without any motion. I can receive awakening from the surroundings and play like that, as if I am being operated by the master.

But I will play that on my own. And of course I will receive strength from the group, but only to the extent that I invest my strength, and then I will begin to live. That is already me who is operating myself, similar to the way the Creator operates me.

One time He is operating me and one time it is me on my own. In the darkness, it is specifically me, and in the Light, it is not me but Him. This is the way I work, until the night becomes day and so that it will be me and not the Creator. I rise only to bestowal and it isn’t important what influences me, the light or the darkness.
[135709]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/21/14, The Book of Zohar

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Question: How can a person control his thoughts so that he will not sin?

Answer: A person cannot control his thoughts. He cannot control himself in any way. Am I my own boss? Where do we see such things?! There is no such thing! But I have to invoke a positive force around me on such a level that it will influence me and sustain me. Then I will be able to control myself.

We always stabilize our state by external forces, by the environment, society, and external support, while a person has no control over it. He doesn’t know which state he will be in the next moment, so how can he control anything?

A person can secure his future only if he prepares all the external vessels, desires. If I worry that the others have a secure future, I thus ensure my own future.

If a person is an element in a system, then how can he ask about what will happen to him? He depends on the whole system, especially since it is arranged so that he has the free will to strengthen his surrounding system and then he can ensure his future. He will never have more than he has prepared in the system, but if he hasn’t prepared it enough, he will receive blows so that he will discover the need to prepare it.
[136133]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14, The Zohar

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Question: How can I ask the Light that Reforms for the public if I know that this brings me pain and bad feelings?

Answer: It is written: “He who shares the suffering of the public is rewarding with seeing the comfort of the public.” Therefore it is good that a person suffers for the public. But what is the suffering about? Only one thing can make me suffer: That I still haven’t realized the program of creation that the Creator designed for me.

In fact, everything is revealed only relative to me. I am privately viewing a film of life, of reality, of humanity. And everything that is revealed before me as humanity, the  universe, and the entire creation is revealed in my vessels of perception. I have to organize them, and hence the entire correction depends of me; the end of correction (Gmar Tikkun) depends on me.

I don’t need to wait for what will happen tomorrow or in another moment. Other than myself, everything else is only parts of creation where the Creator reveals all kinds of states. I have to feel them, to process them correctly, and to direct them towards adhesion so that though this I will change my attitude towards Him. Only that!

There is no reason to wait for tomorrow and there is no reason to think that this will change in any direction. Everything is prepared and placed before me as before the only part of creation that has free choice. All the rest was created for me to use and to help me, and I was created to serve my Maker.
[135970]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/27/14, The Book of Zohar

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Question: How can one never lose confidence in attaining the goal?

Answer: It is necessary to receive confidence from the group. Confidence is an illumination from the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light) from Above that, like all Ohrot (Lights), reaches a person via the environment.

The group must give you a feeling of confidence even before you feel the Light, even though it could be that the friends don’t have it themselves. But each one must connect and integrate with the others and show them that he is full of confidence. Indeed this is false, since none of them have confidence! But you must influence each other by showing that you do have confidence.

Basically, this is psychology, and you are in a psychological environment, so the group can successfully bestow complete confidence to you. You see that the friends are relaxed, so you are also relaxed. But you will feel this confidence only to the degree that you invest in them.

This confidence must be creative in building confidence about the rightness and justice of the way, the ability to attain the goal, and not that it is possible to do nothing and everything will come by itself. We need confidence so that if we do everything possible, we will surely attain the goal, instead of being relaxed and feel that everything will be okay without our efforts. This is not confidence but destruction and death.

Question: How do I remain confident when I come to a group thinking about my material problems all the time?

Answer: So would you want to erase the problems or have the confidence that you need to overcome them, rise above them, and go towards the Creator through connection with the group? This is not so that you would get rid of all problems this way, but so that problems will not disengage you from the way and from the goal. Otherwise you will start to ask the Creator to take away all the disturbances because you don’t want to advance.

Question: But this is my nature!

Answer: Certainly it’s your nature, but do you want to be above it? You have a choice to think about all your problems as an unjust punishment that you want to remove, or that you want to rise above the problems and go ahead by rising above them. Your free choice is found between this and that.
[135868]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/25/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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