Question: What kind of gifts should we give to a friend?

Answer: Show him such signs of attention that he understands that you are doing this for the sake of advancing with him to the Creator, to rise together with him.

It can be any kind of gift, expensive or cheap, small, just some kind of token of attention, completely immaterial and insubstantial. It does not matter.

Question: What is the best gift for you?

Answer: I do not need anything material. There is nothing that I would like. The best thing is when the student understands what kind of work I want to see from him and performs it. This is all.

Question: Should he get feedback that this is exactly what you need?

Answer: Yes, I will tell him.

Question: But can you tell him the exact opposite so that the person will not be proud?

Answer: As a rule, I say that I really need it, and I am not lying or flirting. He should be next to me, feel, or even ask me when I need something, for example, to translate something, put together or correct something from the material that the world needs. Nothing else!

If a student wants to please me, he himself must succeed in his advancement, which means to be a teacher, organize groups, and engage in dissemination.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Best Gift for Laitman” 12/21/13

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Question: You say that being physically in a group does not mean that a person is really in it. Does it mean that this is not a criterion?

Answer: Of course. The desire for connection is the criterion.

Question: How should one treat the friends in the group? I do not know if they want to connect or not? A person can sit silently and that is it.

Answer: Yes, it is difficult to understand. But there are various indications whether he is included in the work along with the rest.

By nature, we are all different: phlegmatic, choleric, etc. Is it possible to say that a choleric person is directed forward more than a phlegmatic person? This is just the way they express themselves externally. Internally, both can be with the same desire, but one will be speaking slowly and doing something, while the other will be rushing from corner to corner. So what? How can you evaluate this?

Question: But the evaluation itself is not to bring them under any category. Let’s say there are criteria: an internal group, a young group, and some other layers. Who generally makes decisions, and how is a person’s readiness established?

Answer: I do not know. It is none of my business because it is a group. They have a teacher, this is me, and together with them we analyze the sources, the articles of Rabash, who wrote a lot on this topic. They know these sources and have repeatedly gone through all the articles. Now let them implement them.

I only set general lines or inspire students to take some action. I cannot tell them how to do that exactly. They must do everything themselves.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. How Are People Admitted to a Group of Kabbalists?” 12/12/13

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Question: When an example is given in a Kabbalistic group, you begin to understand from it that you are not completing something. Can a Kabbalistic group set an example for the world? Will people be able to feel that we have an equal relationship and be drawn to this?

Answer: They will be drawn based on two forces. One force is suffering, which pushes from behind, and the second force is good, which pulls forward.

It all depends on the strength of the environment acting on everyone. It is in the power of the collective to make it so that a person will not be able to think differently. He will not be able to because he is a single small being in the collective field. And if this field begins to act correctly on him, he will be obliged to obey.

To enter the collective or disconnect from it is a person’s free choice. And when he enters, the environment already affects him, and he rides along with everyone without any problems.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. A Living Example” 12/3/13

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Question: It happens that a person does not control his advancement, but not because he does not want to. He understands that this is important, this, seemingly, is his only chance, but it seems as if someone is blocking him from above. What can you do in this state?

Answer: No one is blocking you other than your own egoism.

Question: How can you deceive it?

Answer: Together with the group, there is nothing else. Read what all Kabbalists write! They have nothing else to offer. Nothing else is needed.

This is a simple system—either the connection between everyone into one single organizational system at all levels: inanimate, vegetative, animate, and human or not an organization into one single whole, but a contradiction between all, and then we have confusion.

At some stage it seems that competition is better, but eventually it leads to its natural end because it cannot develop indefinitely. Even because human resources are limited.

What can we compete for? In sports, yes, in various intellectual games, yes, but not in serious matters.

In Kabbalah, competition is about who will bestow more, who will be more useful to society. Competition is not destroyed. This, in general, is a very healthy force and good motivation. Envy, hatred, and jealousy, everything, everything is good only for the sake of bestowal.

Question: Let’s say a person, as you say, must dissolve into a group, but his egoism grows and starts to disturb him again. How can he still give himself to the group? Or is it basically impossible? That is, will there nevertheless be such separation-integration, separation- integration phases?

Answer: Yes, but it will be with the group, it will be soft. If a person walks with a group, he has practically no ups and downs, everything is smoothed out, as in a Wheatstone Bridge Circuit.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Progress Through Pressure” 12/2/13

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Question: How is it that friends seem qualitatively better and more successful than you, but they do not consider themselves like that?

Answer: It seems so to a person, but in fact it may not be so. The main thing is how you feel. It is very good when it seems that everyone else is better than you. You have a lot to catch up on. Jealousy and envy press on you, and you have to go forward and develop.

Comment: This is a point that is always somewhere out there, far away.

My Response: Right. That is how it should be. You will not find an absolute point of reference because everything is relative to you. The closer you come to this state, the further it seems.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Who to Believe?” 11/26/13

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Question: If the wisdom of Kabbalah is a science, how can we tie it to faith above reason? Faith seems to negate science.

Answer: We are on a corporeal level together with the sciences, the arts, and so forth, and in them we can develop.

However, how do we develop? It is only within the ego. The ego develops, and we develop with it, but as of today, the ego actually has ended its development.

Which sciences and arts are we talking about? We see that today everything seems to be stuck, delayed, and coming to a dead end, to a crisis. It has been going on for several decades now. Perhaps people simply don’t understand, but scientists do.

The ego reached its peak and has stopped developing after 6,000 years from a starting point of zero until today. We have been through a process of evolution during this time and have risen to a certain level in the fields of arts and sciences in which the ego has already exhausted itself.

We actually feel that we don’t want anything anymore. Today, we don’t pay attention to anything, and even space research and other sciences don’t interest us anymore.

So, how do we move on to the next stage now? The next stage is a totally different level, and we must also grow in it since there, too, may be a new unknown ego or certain desires.

This transition must be very special. We don’t even understand what it is. It is a transition to a new dimension.

It is totally different in its attributes, there are totally different forces and different connections. It is like our world, but in a totally different way. The still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels of nature are connected according to different laws, the laws of a new dimension, the laws of what we call the spiritual world.

The new dimension is called the spiritual world since faith above reason dominates it, which means bestowal above receiving. The goal of corporeal existence is receiving. In the spiritual world, however, the goal is bestowal.

So, how can we move to an opposite perception in which the Keter of the lower becomes the Malchut of the upper? How can we move from the egoistic ten Sefirot to the altruistic ten Sefirot? It is only if we perform an operation on ourselves in faith above reason.

Reason refers to what I had on the corporeal level, and faith is what guides me on the spiritual level. Thus, I raise myself.

This is why it says in all the sources that the most important thing for us is faith above reason.

What is the practical meaning of faith above reason? It means that our previous reason gradually cools down. We are given help here since we cannot advance by our previous reason and immediately begin to rise above it. This is why there is a certain descent after a convention, the addition of ego.

In spite of and together with this, we must ascend and advance more powerfully toward the connection between us. This is why we must study, try to connect, disseminate, and do everything to achieve a stronger connection between us.

We should feel opposite inclinations since we must do everything in order to delve more deeply into it. Our global group must connect more strongly. This is why we should study, disseminate, and do everything that needs to be done. It is all only in order to connect internally to the same feeling we had in a convention, but on the next level, on a higher level.

What do we lack in order to reach this? We lack the actual actions.

There is Isra-el, which means “Yashar Kel,” (straight to the Creator). This means that Israel is every friend who yearns for spiritual attainment. There is another part called “Torah,” which stems from the Aramaic word “Oraita – Ohr – light.” The concept of Torah includes the group, the connections, mutual guarantee, and so on, everyone’s adhesion to it, our goal. This is the exact path by which we must advance.

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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/21/13, “Faith Above Reason”

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Mutual guarantee is the interconnection of everyone in everyone to the point where it is impossible to make even the slightest movement independently of others. Any movement is transmitted to everyone else, depends on everyone, and is implemented by everyone together.

Thus, due to separate, discrete actions, we come to an integral, indissoluble movement of the entire system. This is mutual guarantee.

Mutual guarantee is our cherished goal, a guiding beacon, to which we are constantly moving with the help of actions to unite in the ten and actions to annul ourselves in front of our friends. The goal of all these actions is to eventually lead us to a unity in which everyone does not exist separately. We dissolve into each other to such an extent that we turn into a homogeneous liquid in which not a single drop differs from another, but all merge into one big drop.

Mutual guarantee means that we have reached such a power of connection that I no longer separate myself from others because we are turning into one person again. Moreover, one person after this correction is no longer the Adam who was before the shattering.

That original Adam consisted of different parts: head, body, legs (Rosh – Toch – Sof), male and female parts. And after correction, it is Adam, like (Domeh) the Creator, because there is no division into Rosh – Toch – Sof, no division into any parts, but rather he is as one whole.

When we want to achieve such a connection between friends, we find out that it is impossible to realize a mutual guarantee between us without the Creator. And then we turn to Him and oblige Him to become the guarantor of our mutual guarantee.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/11/22, “Arvut on the Way to Lishma“

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Question: Basically, I see other people not as they are. With a general system of such chaos of perception of reality, what should I cling to? Surely there must be some kind of beacon that will guide me forward. What should I focus on in order to go the right way?

Answer: You have a group for that. It is why humanity is given to us in such a broken form. It is so that I can clearly, really correct my egoism, not corporeal egoism but spiritual egoism; it is, to put me in such states where I attract the spiritual energy that corrects me upon myself.

Question: Why do most people have the feeling that the group and friends are an order of magnitude higher than you anyway, that they are more collected and more connected?

Answer: Because this is really so. This is not a distorted but a correct representation. A group of Kabbalists who are trying to unite is always closer to spirituality than one person.
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From KabTV’s “I Got a Call. Whom to Believe?” 11/26/13

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Question: Is it possible to call accepting the opinion of a friend, even though it is the opposite of one’s own, “faith above reason”? If so, how do I do it without disregarding my own opinion?

Answer: Faith above reason means contrary to my opinion, I accept the opinion of a friend and follow it 100%. I am trying to make his opinion, even though it is the opposite of mine, become mine. You need to experience it yourself, and gradually you will be able to understand what it is.

Faith above reason is a system of spiritual perception where you begin to see the spiritual world above our world or through it. It is not easy. You need to spend a lot of time and expend a lot of effort until you start to perceive everything this way.

This is a completely different system of the universe, as if you have a completely different mind, feelings, and thoughts.
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From KabTV’s “Fundamentals of Kabbalah,” 6/16/20

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We should yearn to see a friend as the greatest of the generation in a real, tangible way, which is called “within reason,” as it really is, and not as it seems to our egoism. After all, egoism always wants to feel better and more comfortable, and therefore it instinctively belittles everyone around in order to be above them. The main thing for it is to rule.

Therefore, to accept the idea of the need to connect with friends as a means of reaching connection with the Creator is possible only by faith above reason since we certainly do not see each other in our true form. Only on the basis of this small external criterion, where we see that a person is aiming for the same goal and is willing to accept all the conditions necessary to advance toward it, do we begin to treat him as a friend, as a means to connect with the Creator.

Based on such external signs, we decide to start working on our attitude to this person. If he is ready to work together, then we annul all other claims that our ego usually makes and begin to come closer to the person to connect in order to tangibly reveal our connection, and not just by faith above reason.

As we reach a genuine, sensory connection, we are coming closer to building a spiritual vessel in which the Creator is revealed.

A connection can occur above reason, at a time when it does not seem to me that a friend is worth it, but I still connect with him. I use this as the means. We call this a period of preparation, when I value my friends not because I see them as great. According to my feelings, I am above them, but I go above my feelings, do not agree with them, and I imagine my friends as great.

In order to move from faith above reason to reason, that is, to truly appreciate my friends, I need to correct my perception. The correction is in the fact that we are starting to work on our connection despite the opposite opinion. We are building a society in which everyone gives others a sense of the greatness of the group and the goal.

Through working together, we attract the reforming light, and as a result, we move from faith above reason into reason, and so we rise higher and higher. Of course, each subsequent step is more difficult. At first, the friends seemed as not too bad to me: in some ways bad, in some ways good. When it was necessary to rise above reason, I could easily do it and accept them as equals, companions on the way, or even great people of the generation. Their goal and they themselves seemed important to me.

But then I received the burdening of the heart, and I found a lot of flaws in them. It becomes increasingly difficult for me to accept them as great and see the Creator behind them and to warm myself up so that I do not notice anyone except my friends so that friends become everything to me.

Each time it gets harder and harder until I nevertheless overcome these obstacles and fulfill the measure allocated for me. Then all my efforts to go above reason turn into reason, turn into the correct vessel, inside of which the first revelation of the true quality of bestowal takes place, that is, a person is filled with the feeling of the Creator.

Thus, the principle of faith above reason always operates between the degrees, when ascending from one to the other. But when we are building our vessel, we should try as much as possible to transfer it into the reason.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/13, Writings of Rabash “Shlavei HaSulam,” “Concerning Above Reason”

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