Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

The States of “Goes” and “Does”

177.13Question: What is the difference between the states “goes” and “does”?

Answer: “Goes” means that a person has some urge to advance, when he thinks that in the next state, he will be closer to the Creator, closer to the possibility of bestowing. This means that he has an intention to come to bestowal in some form.

Here there are two states: the present one and the next one, and he is already moving between them, passing from one to the other. Therefore, he is called “one who goes.”

And another sits and appears to be he doing something. This means that he was given the opportunity to come here and sit with us. And still this is also called an “action.”

He has no aspiration to come to something. “Bestowal, adhesion, Creator”; these words can be pronounced just like that, but they do not come from the person’s inner feeling.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/11/26, Rabash, “What Are the Four Qualities of Those Who Go to the Seminary, in the Work?”

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The Essence of Spiritual Governance

294.2Question: How can a spiritual directorate replace you, a Kabbalist, who gives people a sensation of the upper world?

Answer: The spiritual directorate deals with clarifying current issues related to advertising, dissemination, studies, and the functioning of our organization, that is, the framework we exist within. It does not deal with the spiritual fulfillment that I give to the students, nor with the knowledge that I reveal to them every day.

The spiritual directorate cannot replace me as a professional, as a teacher. However, it can, and already does, replace me in all decisions concerning the development of the organization and the group so that there are no arbitrary corporeal decisions or deviations.

These are ordinary people, students who are more or less capable of looking objectively at themselves and the group, and of making decisions, not with clouded eyes, but by rising above themselves toward a collective decision.

They understand that whatever the decision may be, if it is collective, it is higher than even the smartest and most brilliant individual decision, because within it the Creator is present. He is the one who truly governs the world and the group. In an individual, egoistic, even if brilliant decision, the Creator is absent, and therefore it is doomed to fail.

Ordinary people do not yet understand this, especially now, when a global system is beginning to reveal itself in the world and the structure of reality is gradually becoming clear: first through human society, then through ecology, and later through the entire vast universe.

The universe is beginning to appear as a single, complete system of inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human nature. However, we do not know what to do with it because we have no tools to work with such a system. In fact, this system is the most important because it alone governs everything.

In other words, the world is governed by the collective as a whole system. Have you noticed how a school of fish turns in water, all at once, not one leading and the others following, but all together, a whole mass, sometimes hundreds of thousands moving as one? Birds behave the same way.

This example shows the upper governance, not when one makes a decision and others follow, but when the wholeness of the group itself governs. Therefore, I exist not to lead you forward, but so that you form such wholeness. And then, among you, the Creator will be revealed, and He will lead you forward.

Moses was great in that he led the people, yet the Creator went before him, as a pillar of fire at night and as a cloud pillar by day.

A teacher is needed to gather everyone into a collective so that within the group, or even within all humanity, the force called “the Creator” will be revealed, the force that holds everything together, the general force of nature.

It is called the force of bestowal and love because only through this quality can people unite. And when it is revealed, everyone will turn in the same direction simultaneously, feeling themselves as one single body. Then all will understand how reality is structured, and to the extent that they are able to unite, the force of the Creator will be revealed.

Therefore, if the spiritual directorate resolves issues collectively, it will certainly succeed, whereas a single “clever individual” never will.

Question: How can we unite so that the upper force will dwell within us?

Answer: Prefer the collective opinion over your own. This opinion is gradually formed by the friends through discussion, by comparing their goals, plans, capabilities, and analyses with what is written in the sources, and for this, it is enough to know a few of the simplest principles.

Any group can do this if it is capable. Unfortunately, there are many “clever” individuals who understand the material very well, but cannot yet get to a collective approach. Therefore, they are not part of the spiritual directorate.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. The Meaning of Spiritual Direction” 9/11/10

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How to Find a Solution to All the Problems?

275Question: You say that we cannot reach even 1% of the world. But everyone wants to instill unity into our dissemination, and in the end, it turns out that we are not succeeding. Then what is the point of disseminating if you initially know that all of this is empty?

Answer: It is with your emptiness that you fill the world.

Question: But mustn’t there be some kind of solution?

Answer: The solution will appear when you become filled with the Creator. Then there will be a different kind of dissemination. The world will begin to feel that one unified force that resides in you. And the world will begin to go crazy, but in a good sense, because people will suddenly develop a new sensation, and everyone, all across different continents and in various countries, will start talking in different languages about the fact that there is one single governance, one single thought, one single force.

Here and there, all kinds of aspirations, disputes, expressions, opinions, and articles will suddenly begin to appear, and people will begin to perceive this and take it into account.

From within humanity, a new common opinion will emerge—the need to communicate in this way and feel others. People will begin to subconsciously understand that through unification, they can achieve something very special.

They will understand that, being united, they need to dig within, and they will find happiness there, a new idea, some kind of way out of the situation. “Instead of engaging in politics, undermining each other, trying to deceive, let us, on the contrary, try to connect, and there, within our unity, we will find a solution to all problems.” That is what everything will be moving toward.

Question: Is this similar to the feeling when a person with a point in the heart encounters Kabbalah for the first time?

Answer: Yes, it will manifest in people, but not in aspiration for Kabbalah; rather, it will be toward this idea, that the idea of unity must produce a new solution from itself, one that is completely irrational, that we cannot determine, attain, or derive with our minds in some equation.

Only if we strive toward one another, and within this common striving—there, where each can break free from his egoism and create some kind of common desire, a common field, something higher, above our reason—we will suddenly perceive a new mind, a new solution, completely different, not from our level.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. What’s inside?” 10/10/10

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Who Will Replace the Kabbalah Teacher?

165Question: If the spiritual leadership cannot replace you as the Kabbalah teacher, then who can do it?

Answer: The Creator, who will be revealed between you if you remain together. But if you do not remain together, you will fall apart. That is all.

The role of the spiritual leadership is to call for unity. It cannot issue commands; it can only determine and say: “We must unite, we must unite.”

If you heed its words, the Creator will reveal Himself within your unity and you will learn from Him and from no one else.

There is not a single one of my students who can replace me. Only together, as equals.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. In the union” 9/11/10

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Invest Effort in the Group

938.01Comment: While working within a group, a person feels a certain satisfaction from having submitted himself to the group and doing what the friends want from him.

My Response: It is true. If a person has performed a specific task and succeeded, then he feels satisfaction, pride, and vanity. But this is not important. Let him do everything for the sake of that, and then, as it is written, from “Lo Lishma” he will come to “Lishma.” Then he will see whether it is worth doing it for the sake of praise and whether he needs this praise at all.

The main thing is to make an effort as much as possible. But if you begin to consider that after all, you are doing it out of your desire to receive, and not yet for the sake of bestowal, you will never do anything at all. These are indeed the correct questions that Pharaoh asks: “Who are you, what are you, and why are you striving so intensely?” But if you do not strive in this way, you will never break free from your current state.

Imagine a child. If he does not learn anything smart or useful, he will remain stuck in his childish games and will not grow up. One should not be overly clever; one simply needs to act.

This is also a problem. There are many seemingly contradictory pieces of advice. On one hand, it is said that one should not be too clever, and on the other hand, that one must act and think. And a person rushes about and does not know what to answer his own doubts because his mind is cluttered with a host of counsels, resolutions, and sayings from the sages.

But after all that, if you cast aside all these intellectual subtleties, you are left with only one choice: to invest your efforts in the group.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/26, Rabash, “What Is the ‘Bread of an Evil-Eyed Man’ in the Work?”

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What Does It Mean to Aspire to Spirituality?

938.03Question: You say that the Klipa is a very powerful force. It is like a counter-force that drags you down and does not allow you to do something. Are we really in a very strong Klipa?

Answer: Yes, but not in a very strong one. We have been given good conditions, practically everything we need, and yet we still cannot make the effort.

Question: Does this depend on a small group or on everyone who has joined us?

Answer: It depends on everyone who wants to participate in the mutual guarantee (Arvut).

Comment: You give such precise answers that present both sides. But it is impossible to connect them.

My Response: It is still impossible, yes. But one must constantly strive for it. To correctly aspire to spirituality means to strive, together with the friends, to create one single, unified common desire. Then it will acquire a quality similar to that of the Creator, and He will be revealed within that desire.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. Klipa” 10/9/10

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We Lack Unity

101Question: Many say that we lack unity, that supposedly there are elements that hinder our breakthrough. How long does the accumulative process have to work for this to be revealed?

Answer: It depends on those who are trying to reach the state of unity. What does “long” or “not long” have to do with it? It is possible to achieve this relatively quickly with great effort or it could be stretched for many years with small efforts.

Ultimately, a specific level of shared desire should develop in a person together with the other friends that would be ready to disconnect from each of them and be one.

In this unity, which is called “one,” not each one but one single whole, the point of unity, the Creator will be revealed to them.
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From KabTV’s “I Got A Call. We lack Unity” 9/15/10

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First of All—Unity

749.02The people of Israel are not formed simply by ordinary individuals connecting with one another. They become a people because together they attach themselves to Moses.

Moses is called the “faithful shepherd,” that is, the emissary of the Creator within the people. And the concept “people of Israel” means that they are connected with Moses.

Moses is the quality of Israel (“Yashar El” – straight to the Creator), the one who points the way. The others, like a flock, simply follow him, and he leads them out of Egypt.

But if each one of the three million Jews who were in Egypt at the time had connected individually with Moses, would that not have sufficed? Why did they have to unite among themselves in order to be able to connect to Moses and, through him, to the Creator? Why was their unification a necessary condition?

The necessity to joining oneself to Moses means the annulment of egoism, of self‑love. And the result of this is love of the neighbor. Therefore, first the people unite among themselves, that is, they nullify their egoism, their love of self, and only then are they able to receive the message of love for the Creator from Moses, and through Moses, to connect with the Creator.

Not every person must attain the level of Moses, but everyone must accept the work “to love one’s neighbor” on the level appropriate to the ordinary people of Israel.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/26, Rabash, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”

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The Spiritual Root Realized in Material Form

767.2Question: If the people of Israel already came out of Egypt once, then why must we repeat this again now?

Answer: In the historical process of its development, the people of Israel carried out the exodus from Egypt about 4,000 years ago; therefore, we do not need to go through this again on the material level now.

We do not need to journey to Ur of the Chaldeans and then relocate to Israel, descend from Israel into Egypt, return from there to the Land of Israel again, build the First and Second Temples, and go through this entire process once more.

The material bodies in past incarnations did what they were required to fulfill at the level of the spiritual roots; they realized it within matter. However, nothing was accomplished in spirituality since the soul had not yet attained that level.

At the time when all these events took place on the material level, the people, in the spiritual sense, were at their usual degree, at the level of the masses. Both the exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Land of Israel occurred solely on the material level.

All that they possessed on the spiritual level at that time was merely a glimmer of the level of Nefesh, that is, a sensation that they were close to spirituality, to the Creator, and a sense of the importance of their actions, like a person who is under the influence of the spiritual.

But since a specific spiritual root exists, it must necessarily extend into the material world and be realized here. This is precisely why we went through this entire path on the earthly level once with the exception of the final correction.

We have already been in Egypt, exited it, conquered the Land of Israel, built the First Temple at the level of Mochin deHaya, only to see it destroyed, then built the Second Temple at the level of Mochin deNeshama,” and it too was destroyed. We went into exiles. We passed through several exiles and have now returned from the last one.

And now we must build the Third Temple, one in which Mochin deHaya and Mochin deNeshama will be present together as Mochin deYechida, so that the Third Temple encompasses the essence of both it predecessors combined.

This signifies that in the material world we have already traversed the entire path up to the very end of correction. But in spirituality we have not yet accomplished anything. We have only just arrived at our current state, the preparation period. Now we must carry out the exodus from Egypt, enter spirituality, and then go through this entire path in spirituality.

Our present era is the time when, in the near future, all souls are destined to complete their preparatory stage and enter the upper world; they will begin to ascend the spiritual ladder and, pass all 125 degrees, and reach the end of correction.

In the material we have practically nothing left to realize except what must still be done before the building of the Third Temple. The outcome, whether we encounter further suffering or goodness will be revealed to us so that we may come to our final correction, depends on our inner work, on our deeds.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/8/26, Rabash, “Come unto Pharaoh – 2”

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Build a Better Environment

963.7Question: What does it mean to build a better environment each time?

Answer: Building a better environment means that I devote myself to it with the intention that it will become stronger and support me when I need it. I invest myself in it to the extent that I have something to invest. And by helping others, I essentially express love for the friends.

The group can present you with a new, stronger desire for the Creator each time, and if you nullify yourself before it, you can receive from it.

You change the group by constantly investing in it, making it stronger; and you nullify yourself before it to an ever-greater extent, and it becomes increasingly bestowing toward you. This is called “each time, a different environment.”

Sometimes I hear people say they want to move from one group to another. There is no need for this, why do it? On the contrary, if you feel uncomfortable in your group, it means there is a place there where you should invest your efforts. In fact, it does not matter which group you are in. If a person is ready to bestow and to humble himself before it, the group can even consist of beginners.

When a new person arrives, they are burning with desire, wanting constantly to sit right next to me, even fighting for it. But after some time passes, they move farther away and “call” me from a distance, as if with a remote control. I was better off with them when they were just beginners, their desire ignited me. And now where is it? It seems to them that they already know everything, understand everything. And so, it is with each of you.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/22/26, Rabash, “What Is the ‘Bread of an Evil-Eyed Man’ in the Work?”

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