The nature of the body is such that it always sees flaws in others rather than their merits. That is why the sages said: “Try to justify every person.” Meaning, even if within reason I see that a friend is not right, I still try to justify him. And if I see the friend’s merits even within reason, that is even better.

After all, it is not important to me whether someone else is right or not, and in fact, it is impossible to ever truly judge that. What matters to me is calibrating myself according to the spiritual world. If I think that all my friends are righteous, kind, and respectable people, and I want to see them as great, as if they were the Creator, then through this I adjust myself, I correct my vision, my perception, of the upper world.

Therefore, if I see the friend’s merits within reason, this means I have already tuned myself to the correct vision. If I don’t see this, then I must strive to see and imagine as if he is right, because through this “as if” I come closer to seeing spirituality, to seeing the truth.

It is desirable to see our friends as great, each in their own way. Every person has qualities that I do not possess. If I constantly look for only the positive qualities in them, it will help me see  “Columbus’ ship,” to see spirituality.

By doing so, I diminish my egoism and elevate the qualities that are external to me. And through this, I as if elevate spirituality because it is currently zero to me since I do not feel or understand it. If I raise the friend in my eyes, I thereby increase my ability to perceive the spiritual.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/7/20, “Work with Faith Above Reason”

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Question: Can one see the world from end to end within the ten?

Answer: Of course, a ten is a complete system of creation, which contains no more than ten elements, and if all of them manifest among the ten friends, then you need nothing more. In your small ten you will reveal all the worlds, including the Creator. Outside of the ten, there is nothing.

That is why the book that lays out the Kabbalistic method is called The Study of the Ten Sefirot.

Question: On one hand, all of humanity is a ten; on the other hand, two people are also a ten. Can I choose the people? Suppose I like two people, and I try to implement the spiritual method with them. Is that a ten? And the other twenty or thirty people in the group, I haven’t reached them yet.

Answer: But later you will have to connect them as well.

Question: So I can choose a few people I’m comfortable with?

Answer: To exit yourself, one person is enough.

Question: So, in principle, there can be many groups of two or three people?

Answer: Maybe so, but it is better if it is closer to ten. More than ten, however, is impossible. A person cannot encompass more than that.

Question: Is the system arranged so that I have a ten and I don’t need to care about the rest of the world?

Answer: The entire world will gather inside your ten. Through it, you will receive everything the world wants to say to you.
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From Kabbalah Lesson in Russian 3/11/18

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Deciding when to go in the right line and when in the left is difficult work, and it is what we will have to engage in in the future.

Whenever each of us encounters personal disturbances that knock us off the path, we will rise above them and restore wholeness. We are like the keys of one musical instrument, which are pressed down and lifted up in turn.

Sometimes one of us becomes greater and another smaller, and then vice versa. In this manner we will feel how the Creator speaks to us, how He plays on us like on ten piano keys, transmitting His language. We will become the musical instrument on which the Creator plays.

The melody reflects all our states and the conflicts between us, in both minor and major keys, in a symphony of different sounds. Therefore every melody is very different. If you look at the Psalms of King David, you can see how distinct they are. Although we do not know what their melodies were, even by their words and rhythm one can imagine what unique works they must have been in sound.

I hope that we will be able to rise to a state where we can hear the songs of King David, his heavenly music, because nothing disappears in the spiritual world. We will be able to hear King David’s voice singing the Psalms.

The Creator speaks to us through all the primary sources, the works of the Kabbalists, because they were written from a state of adhesion with the Creator, from attainment, always in the middle line.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 9/6/20, “Work with Faith Above Reason”

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Question: If a person is above their environment, can they influence and correct it?

Answer: A person cannot rise above one’s environment! They are completely dependent on it. Even if they are ordinary people, and he is a great Kabbalist, they will still influence him.

Imagine that you take a beautiful tree full of fruit, pull it out of the ground and plant it in the middle of the desert. What will happen to it? Will it turn the desert into a blooming garden?

Our soul depends on the environment in the same way.

The purpose of creation is both the group and my personal work, and the Creator within at this one point. Imagine that your whole life depends on this one point that you need to figure out. Right now whether you will live or not depends on it! And so it is every moment.

For example, you can’t breathe if you don’t press this point, and then oxygen comes to you from there. And if I didn’t press it, I didn’t join it, there is no oxygen.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/18/10, Writings of Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”

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The condition for connection in the upper world is the condition of “not for one’s own sake,” but “for others.” This is a principle that we are simply unable to understand.

In our world, we build systems of healthcare, education, fire safety, and so on, but all of it is done for ourselves. Otherwise, we would not take part in it. That is our world. That is our nature. We should not delude ourselves into thinking we are different.

But spiritual unity is built on the exact opposite principle: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

If I wish to attain that, I connect with others, not because I feel good with them, not because together we will achieve something better like confidence, safety, and successful development, but because I accept their desires and realize them with my own strength. That is all!

In other words, it is as if I myself do not exist. There exists only a mechanism that works to fulfill the desires of others. This is the fulfillment of the principle: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
[183443]
From the International Kabbalah Congress in Moscow 5/2/16, Lesson 1

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Faith above reason means that I accept the view of the upper one even when it clashes with my own understanding, as it is written: “They have eyes but do not see; they have ears but do not hear.” This means that I can lift myself to a higher level each time, as though pulling myself upward to the next rung, by choosing the upper one’s opinion over my own, even when it contradicts everything I know.

If a friend hands me an envelope with $1,000 and I do not check the amount because I trust him—this is faith below reason. My trust does not contradict what I know, and therefore it does not demand faith.

Knowledge is the mind and perception I possess within this material world, like a judge who relies solely on what his eyes can see. Faith, however, is what stands above this knowledge, as Bina stands above Malchut. And to rise from the degree of Malchut to that of Bina, I must advance through faith above reason.

If I count the money and find that there are $999 instead of $1,000, then $999 is my knowledge, and the remaining “$1” is the measure of my faith. But if the envelope contains only $1, or is completely empty, and still I believe the higher one, considering his view to be true, then I elevate myself above my own reason and begin to see from the vantage point of the upper one.

The mind of the upper one is the opinion of the group or the teacher. If I strive each time to rise to faith above reason, this means I am ascending spiritual degrees. If I make no effort to accept the mind of the upper one, I neither enter nor approach the spiritual world.

Faith above reason is the only point of free choice granted to a person in this world.

If I accept the upper one’s view and agree that the envelope holds $1,000, although I counted only $999, then I rise to his degree. And then I myself witness how the envelope becomes filled to the full measure, not with money, but with the greatness of the Creator.

Faith above reason is a special mechanism, a unique method that lifts us from the material degree to the spiritual one, and from a lower spiritual degree to a higher one. This is the only way to ascend: by taking on the opinion of the higher one.

Each time I am as if born anew on the next degree, again and again. I enter the new state like a newborn who carries nothing from the previous one; I cling to the mind of the upper one and proceed with it.

With my own senses I see only $1 in the envelope. Yet above my senses I must accept that it is $1,000. I do not nullify my knowledge, I leave it as it is. I clearly see the gap between what I know and what stands above knowledge.

This gap defines the difference between Malchut and Bina. On one hand, “the judge has only what his eyes see”—this is Malchut. Yet I must go against this knowledge and prefer the knowledge of the higher one—Bina, faith.

And within this interval—this divergence between Malchut and Bina, between knowledge and faith above knowledge—the upper world and spiritual reality begin to reveal themselves.

All the work in the ten proceeds by faith above reason. I may see no love among the friends; on the contrary, we seem ready to devour one another. Yet we work to love each other. In the eyes of the upper one our ten is perfect and stands in complete unity; in our own eyes it appears entirely otherwise. This difference is what we must examine and rise above.

And this contradiction remains. I cannot reconcile one with the other, for this distance is the very gap between Bina and Malchut, it cannot close; in fact, it continues to widen.

This is the difference between the Creator and the created being as it awakens within me. And the more I follow faith, the more I cleave to the Creator instead of clinging to my own mind and animal body. This is how spiritual advancement unfolds.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/20, “Work with Faith Above Reason”

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Question: How can we verify that we are bringing contentment to the Creator? What should we feel?

Answer: We should feel that we have an inner connection with the Creator, that is, feel His presence in my heart, His attitude toward me, and my attitude toward Him. In essence, this is the foundation of connection.

Question: I will feel it internally with my heart, but is there any external indication, relative to the environment, that I am correctly directed toward the Creator?

Answer: We constantly learn from the sources that it depends on love for friends, on connection with them, and on mutual help.

All of this relates to the connection within the group. Without it, we cannot advance.
[349845]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/25, Writings of Baal HaSulam “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot“

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It is impossible to directly measure our attitude toward one another or our attitude toward the Creator, it can be only relative to an outside standard that is not in Him, not in us, but in between. In this standard, which stands between us, we can find what connects us and what separates us.

This standard is the group. If I attach myself to the friends in the group, then to that same extent I discover myself in adhesion with the Creator. The group gives me the ability to measure concrete parameters, the “height” and “weight” of my love and hatred, through which I attain adhesion with the Creator.

According to the measure of my adhesion with the ten, I can determine the measure of my filling with the light. After all, I have no possibility whatsoever to measure the light itself, it is only indirectly, through the group. Through the shared desires in the group, I begin to feel the light that fills it.

I can only feel pleasure in my own desires, and this is not enough. I need to check how, through the pleasure in these desires, I connect with the one who fills them, and whom I, in turn, fill. Therefore, there is the condition that “From the love of the created beings one comes to the love of the Creator.”

We cannot judge the light itself, but only the desires that are filled by it, just as one does not speak of electricity itself, but only of electrical phenomena. It is telling that electricity does not pass inside the wire, but around it.

Therefore, the group is the perfect standard for my adhesion with the Creator, like a tuning fork by which one evaluates the sound of a string on a musical instrument. Until I touch the string and it begins to sound, nothing can be said about it. Only by the desires (Kelim) can one judge the light.

A similar example are musical notes by which one evaluates a melody. The notes indicate which strings must be plucked or which keys must be pressed. They are the score of desires with which we work in order to hear the sounds of the music within ourselves. A note does not indicate the sound itself, but the instrument that produces it. Therefore, by attaining the instruments of connection with the group, we attain adhesion with the Creator.
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From Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/18

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The left line signifies going with knowledge and seeing the world uncorrected. That is, I see that the world suffers from a multitude of problems, my friends are full of shortcomings, and the Creator is no better. I criticize everything because my desire to enjoy has grown and has become revealed, and I speak out of it. This is called the left line.

But this is a line and not a simple dissatisfaction with material life, I am criticizing spiritual work, the group, our progress, and the perfection of our work. The left line pushes me away from spiritual work, but does not completely throw me into material things. Otherwise, it will no longer be the left line but plain egoism.

The left line in my work indicates that I want to move toward connection with the group and the Creator, but I am unable to do so. I can weigh and count exactly what I cannot accomplish and why. This is called the left line.

The greater the frequency with which we reach the middle line from any state, the greater the progress and acceleration in our work. From these points, we build a middle line that gains such force that the Creator is revealed inside it.

The middle line does not exist in nature; we build it, and therefore it is said: “You created Me.”

If we do not help ourselves, no one will. After all, we are already in the ten, and in it, everyone is responsible for all. The Creator brings me to the right place and says: “Take it for yourself.” And if I do not take it, then I do not; that is my free choice. The Creator will not do anything else. Later He will help me through suffering, but who knows when that will be?
[349872]
From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson, 9/6/2020, Work with Faith above Reason

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Those righteous that have been rewarded with wholeness, raising MAN for that sublime coupling, no longer have any reception for themselves. Also, the MAN that they raised was to bestow, and not to receive.

Hence, with the good deeds and the MAN, they correct the screen for the Nukva and qualify her for this great coupling where the qualification itself is reflected light that rises from the screen of the Nukva and above, since anything that rises from below upwards is bestowal and repelling of reception for oneself. At that time, the coupling by striking with the upper light takes place, and the upper light dresses in a garment of the rising reflected light (Rashbi, Zohar for All, Vol. 1, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar,” You Are in Partnership with Me, Item 63).

Question: What does it mean to raise the reflected light in our work with our friends in the group?

Answer: In our case, an ascent from below upward means that we awaken to greater connection between us, and wish that the force of mutual bestowal would reign among us, which will bring contentment to our Creator. It is like children who stop quarreling in order to make their mother happy.

To raise the reflected light means to elevate the value of the quality of bestowal in which we want to live, to become included in bestowal, and to correspond to it. It is as if we pour liquid onto a sponge and want it to be completely absorbed, to penetrate every pore.

In the same way, we want to absorb the quality of bestowal so that it enters all our capillaries and cells, all our atoms, and saturates our entire being so deeply that even the electrons begin to spin in the opposite direction. Bestowal must fully enter our mind, our heart, our sensations, our perception of the world and its analysis—all our decisions.

It is impossible to imagine how much everything will change. Sometimes a person changes drastically under the influence of certain events, but here we are talking about a much greater transformation. We want this quality to enter us and take full control over us in every respect, even if I am not aware that I am under a new authority, like a drunk who has lost his egoistic reasoning.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/23/14, “Introduction of The Book of Zohar”

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