Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

The Ark—A Spiritual Creation

934Question: What does it mean that through connection, the ten realizes the true property of Bina?

Answer: We can define Bina as egoistic qualities that we unite to achieve one, single correct action—to be above egoism. This is how the ten builds their ark.

The Ark is a spiritual creation—ten men build such states among themselves that help them pass any sea. They do not drown, but rather swim across it calmly.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/24, Writings of Rabash “Gopher Wood”

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Look Where the Force Is Hiding

947Question: You said we should try to build everything around one center, and for the Creator to rise higher and higher from it. How do we do it correctly?

Answer: Our job is to constantly strive to feel the Creator at the center of the whole Universe and thus try to find Him there.

Basically, what are we looking for? We seek someone loving, caring, thinking, and realizing everything that happens to us. This is the Creator. We are looking for where this force is hiding. And if we start looking for it in ourselves and between us, we will quickly find it.

Question: In our world, we are under the influence of all kinds of forces. How can we find a connection with this particular force that is behind other forces and influences every time and not waiver to the left or the right?

Answer: To do so, we need to aim toward the center of our organization, and then we will find the Creator in it. And the center of our community, as Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and other Kabbalists write, is our common heart.
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From  the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/4/24, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Questions about Spiritual Work—195

234Question: What is Noah’s merit before all of humanity?

Answer: His merit is that relative to his generation and his actions, he was righteous.

Question: What is the spiritual movement of the ten?

Answer: The spiritual movement of the ten is a state in which all friends connect to express a collective attitude toward the quality of bestowal.

Question: What correction should we make together as a ten to progress?

Answer: To become righteous means to ask the Creator to reveal this quality to you.

Question: If I recognize all my desires, both righteous and wicked, and relate them to the Creator, is this the quality of a righteous?

Answer: Not yet, but it is already on the path to the quality of “righteous.”

Question: How should we see our world?

Answer: We should see our world as one in which we act and can correct through our attitude toward each other and the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/24 , “Parashat Noah”

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Merit the Quality of Righteous

632.3When he becomes righteous in terms of the practice, he is rewarded and becomes whole in his heart, as Even Ezra said (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 342, “Noah Was a Righteous Man“).

An absolute sinner who has merited to become pure is a person who has found flaws in all his actions and corrected them.

One can leave the degree of sinner and become righteous only through connection with the Creator.

Question: What good deeds can you do in the ten to become righteous?

Answer: Help everyone in the ten unite and rise to the level of bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/1/24, Parashat Noah

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Find Your Own “Self” within You

88Question: In the ten, we work with desires that can be corrected. At the same time, should each friend focus on their own pure desire and ask from it for the connection of the ten?

Answer: Yes, but they should also feel what others are asking for, so as not to stray too far from them.

Question: What does it mean to work with these desires and become included in them? Every day, we meet in workshops and read sources. Should I find my friend’s highest desire and connect to it?

Answer: No, you should simply find your own “self” within you—your own desires, connect with them to the Creator, and in this way draw closer to Him. Then everything will work out for you.

Question: If strong corporeal desires for my own sake arise within me through my prayer, that does not mean they will be fulfilled, right? In other words, the Creator will do what He needs to.

Answer: No, the Creator will only do what He needs to as a last resort. He wants you to recognize for yourself which of your desires are good and kind and which are foolish and harmful.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/24, Writings of Rabash “Gopher Wood”

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Ark of the Ten

935Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood, and cover with pitch inside and out (Rabash, Assorted Notes, 343, “Gopher Wood”).

The Ark of the ten is built from our desires to overcome all distances between us and the Creator and to arrive in a good state to the connection with Him.

The correct work of the ten involves overcoming the waves that try to break our ark. We work against them to hold onto each other and steer the ark forward.

A ten that can withstand the flood consists of ten friends who understand that they can reach the purpose of creation only if they help each other.

In this way, by holding onto each other, they direct their ship toward the highest waves, and the main thing is to reach the correct destination.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/24, Writings of Rabash “Gopher Wood”

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The Ten Becomes Your Soul

938.04Question: You said that many of your students are already beginning to feel or are nearing the feeling of the first degrees. Is there a certain potential that can be unlocked and reached at each of our lessons and meetings? Or is everything generally open and dependent on one’s preparation?

Answer: Everything is open, and everything depends on a person’s preparation and inclusion in his ten.

Even if the ten is small and weak, but he is included in it, like Rabbi Yossi Ben Kisma in his disciples, then for him, this ten becomes his soul in which he reveals the Creator.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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The Creator Is Revealed In the Prepared Kli

947Question: How can we understand that the Creator has been revealed? Is it expressed in feelings or in some special way?

Answer: The Creator reveals Himself when the vessel (Kli) is ready. If ten people are connected in mutual help and love on the very first degree that they can create between them, and they turn to the Creator to form and support this degree, then the Creator establishes the connection between them and supports it.

The Creator serves as the guarantor that they will hold on to each other, and only then can He be revealed within the connection He has created from them. All that is required from them is the request.

Question: What does it mean to turn to the center of the ten?

Answer: Turning to the center of the ten means to the point where everyone comes together.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/28/19, “Questions and Answers”

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Achieve Lishma

243.01Question: When can we say that a person has reached Lishma?

Answer: When all his intentions are only for the sake of the Creator.

Question: Does this happen in a fragmented state or is it a given?

Answer: This happens in the general state between man and the Creator.

Question: If I want to feel what the author of the article felt, what the teacher feels when answering questions, when I listen to the questions of my friends, and being in the ten thank the Creator for creating all the conditions for me to come to Lishma, do I thus come to Lishma?

Answer: You have this opportunity, but whether you reach it or not depends on you, on how much you will put your desires, efforts, and work into it.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/30/24, Writings of Rabash “And the Lord Saw”

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What Should We Take Care of in the Ten?

938.07Question: How does a person differentiate between the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim in their inner work?

Answer: The difference lies in the very vessel, in the desire itself: either I strive to be in the light of Hochma or in the light of Hassadim. These are opposite things: we receive the light of Hochma in the vessels of reception, while the light of Hassadim is received in the vessels of bestowal.

We should strive to create such a state of connection between us where both the light of Hochma and the light of Hassadim will fill us, and we will be able to retain them within ourselves.

Question: What does it mean to fill a person with the light of Hassadim?

Answer: It means we draw them away from receiving so that they remain in the quality of bestowal at all times.

Question: In the group of ten, we try to bestow upon our friends and ask the Creator to grant us this quality. At what point can we begin to care about the vessels of reception?

Answer: A person should not focus on their own vessels of reception. We should only care about how to bestow upon our friends. In doing so, we will correct ourselves to the point where our vessels become entirely vessels of bestowal.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 10/31/24, Writings of Rabash “Gopher Wood”

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