Question: To reach prayer, is this the individual work of a person or the work of the entire group?

Answer: Of course this is the shared work of all of us. From where would I get the strength for it? If I don’t identify with the sorrow of the community, I wouldn’t be able to reach prayer.

Otherwise I will scream for myself, but for this won’t receive an answer from above. I must transmit to the Elyon (Higher) the request of others, the Prayer of Many. It is called this because I scream for the many, and not because many people scream.

The “many” are my own desires that are portrayed to me as strangers. I scream because I want to approach them, feel them like I feel myself, reach love of others as myself, and connect.

I don’t scream about it being bad for them and the Creator needs to help them, even though this is also prayer, as it is said, “One who prays for his friend is answered first” (Baba Kama 90b). The main thing is, when I see them as parts of myself and am connected with them, to that degree I am connected with the Creator.

After all, if I ask the Creator to be merciful to them and to solve their problems, then in this way I blame Him that He is abusing them and am thinking He is cruel and am asking Him to do something good for them. But I cannot turn to the Creator that way and I will not have equivalence of form with Him if I don’t decide that He is merciful and gracious.

So a true prayer is not a request that something good should be done for others. How can I ask the Creator to do something good if He is also good that does good? I ask Him to make such a correction in us that all of us will adhere with Him. This is the entire prayer, there is nothing more for which to ask.

If I see something bad, this is because there is a gap,; the forces of Shevira (Breakage) are discovered. And the Shevira is within me, so I see reality as being so bad. So I ask that all of us will be able to adhere to the Creator and give Him pleasure. After all, we are so despicable that we are not prepared to accept Him as He truly is: good that does good.

It means that we don’t ask Him to do good for us because in every case we are found in an optimal situation for us. We ask for correction of our distorted vision and sensation, so we don’t blame the Creator like little children who scream, “Bad Mommy!”

Question: But what is to be done with an evil inclination that constantly proclaims that everything is bad?

Answer: A person must try to rise above his evil inclination and not annihilate it. We need to rise above it and be higher than it because desires of bestowal must be above desires of reception. Yet it is forbidden to extinguish the desires of reception; for then the desires of bestowal cannot exist.

Without the Yetzer HaRa (evil inclination), what are we left with? The Yetzer HaTov (good inclination) cannot exist in us because this is the Creator, the desire to bestow. I cannot be the Yetzer HaTov; the Yetzer HaTov can exist within me only to the degree that it rides on the Yetzer HaRa.

The Yetzer HaRa assures me of detachment from the Creator, independence. And the Yetzer HaTov that controls it gives me the form of the Creator. However, I can only ask for the Yetzer HaTov to dominate over the Yetzer HaRa within me. Only the Upper Light can carry this out; I myself am not able to. This is not at my power.

I can only clarify that this is what is required from me. I get such a possibility as a result of the Shevira, which builds the connection between the desire to receive and the desire to bestow. So I get the ability to clarify, to analyze, to differentiate between one and the other. The Upper Light begins to illuminate these concepts for me and I see what is good and what is bad.
[129215]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/14

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Question: How does our dissemination qualitatively develop our desire?

Answer: It is thanks to the dissemination that I become one who bestows. There is no other action in our world that can make me resemble the Creator except dissemination.

I go somewhere in the evening and have a workshop there, a lecture, talk to people and gradually bring them closer to one another, encouraging them to think about the meaning of life, and telling them how we can improve our corporeal life.

Our corporeal life is only an excuse to participate in mutual bestowal. After all, the whole world is just an excuse, the internal motive to start building the right relationships above it. I tell people how we will be able to get rid of all our troubles and problems thanks to the right relations between us.

They care about what will happen to them in this world. They want me to draw a picture of the wonderful tomorrow for them and I have to draw for them the wonderful future we will have if we are more connected to one another. Having no other choice, it is a compromise for people, and the means to improve their corporeal future, while for me the corporeal life is temporary and only the stimulus, the excuse, the reason, to ascend to spiritual states.

This means that our goals and means are opposite from those of the public, but this is the difference between the levels: for me this is the state on the upper level and for them it is different on the lower level. But I perceive their corporeal desires and in order to fulfill them I suggest that they establish better relations between us and people already begin to think about improving the relations between them since without this our corporeal life will not improve.

I use their desire to correct the relations between everyone and actually raise them to my level. From my level, I already raise these desires to the level of the relations between people that belongs to the thought of creation and ask the Creator to give us the power to overcome the obstacles so that the connection between us will heal the painful wounds of humanity. After all, the fact that they feel blows is a sign of the lack of connection between us. Thus everyone reaches a state of harmony. An ordinary person reaches a certain level of connection with others and a corporeal filling. I get a chance to bestow unto them and thus to bestow unto the Creator, and the Creator enjoys! This means that all these three levels have advanced in the right direction. Thus I intensify the glory of the Creator in the world.

So let’s disseminate! But before we subdue ourselves before this action and delve into clarifications in order to understand exactly:

• Why we do it,
• What people want,
• Why we have to absorb their desires,
• How we can make sure that we will provide them with a good life only if we are connected,
• How I begin to feel that I have to bring people the right filling,
• Why I need the group in order to do that, since otherwise I will not be able to fulfill my role in dissemination,
• How we need the Creator in this matter.

I actually go out to ordinary people who complain about their corporeal problems and finally I feel that without the Creator’s help I am totally lost. The people format this deficiency in me—the need for the Creator! After all, I see that I cannot give them anything by myself if the Creator doesn’t help me.

Thus we actually connect to the upper force by the people, and therefore, we have to really appreciate our work in dissemination since it actually gives us an opportunity for a spiritual ascent.
[129330]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: If the Creator controls both my heart and my mind, then how can I choose and change direction?

Answer: Me, I am just a part of the system, something that is included in the group, and with the help of the connection with it, am able to participate in the general prayer, MAN.

It’s not my body and not my present feelings and mind. All of that isn’t taken into consideration at all, thus this world is called “imaginary.” It is possible to completely erase everything that we feel since there is nothing real about it. Everything is fictitious. So what do I have left? The Reshimo (reminiscence) isn’t me either, since it also comes from above. Only my efforts to be integrated into the group are taken into account, with the goal to return the system back to what it was in the beginning. And this is called MAN.

Question: When I work in the group, do desires of another kind awaken in me?

Answer: Of course it is another kind of desire. My desire to be integrated into the group and the efforts I make in order to connect to the friends is already my effort to reach bestowal since when I do this, I must annul myself.
[129437]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/9/14

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Question: Why is it necessary to connect with friends and it is not enough simply to be involved with dissemination to the public?

Answer: Our dissemination to the wider public is an action that comes from above to below. It is necessary to come to people and to guide them, to become their head. But in order to be their head I must be the bestower. How can I acquire the characteristic of bestowal if I am not connected with another ten, or a hundred, or a few thousand people like me, in conditions of absolute equality?

I need the group to acquire the characteristic of bestowal with which I will go out to the wider public. So together with the group, I need to be connected to the Light that Reforms. Alone, I am not able to be connected to the Light. The Light doesn’t bestow to each one separately, there must be ten people according to the spiritual structure of the Kli. If there aren’t ten people, the Light will have nothing in which to be clothed, in which to be grasped; it will have nothing to fill. It is as if a Kli had only walls but not the tenth Sefira, the Malchut, meaning there is no bottom of the Kli. So it is called a Tsinor (pipe).

Without the group it is impossible to attract the Light, the power that will correct you. What can you bring to the public if you are not connected to a Kli and the Light that fills it? How can you disseminate if you don’t have any connection with the origin of the power? You can just sell books or work on the Internet in dissemination of articles and there won’t be any problem in replacing you with some paid worker who just works for a salary. For if you don’t have Light, what can you bestow other than papers?
[129420]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/14

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Question: If everything is done by the Light, what exactly depends on a person in attaining the love of others?

Answer: A person has to try to perform certain actions. Not everything is determined by the Light, it also depends on the person. He tries, sees, and understands that he is incapable of performing them, and so he asks for help, cries out, and disagrees. This is where he participates in the process: in the work of the group on a person and in a person’s work on the group.

It is true that the Lights move the vessels, but the person and the group are combined and also the group with the teacher, and there is still the personal effort that a person makes in this combination.

If I begin to perform different actions in the group, for example, if I take kitchen duties although I don’t want to at all, but I do it because I am ashamed of others, because I want to be loved and respected, it means that my motives are egoistic.

Otherwise, I feel regret because I did it as a result of my ego and didn’t act by myself with the intention of love and bestowal. The feeling of regret comes later when I don’t work in the kitchen anymore, but during the study. These actions accumulate: my regret because I operated egoistically and also the actions themselves in which my ego helps me. This means that the evil inclination helps a person, “Pharaoh brings the children of Israel closer to our father in heaven.”

The fact that we see a great profit in spiritual actions and rush to perform them in expectation of a reward is actually thanks to the evil inclination. Without it we could not attain anything. But later I regret the fact that I did everything for my own sake and this sorrow draws the Light that Reforms. These two forces operate in us in complete harmony, as it says: “the Creator has created them one opposite the other.” And so we arrive from Lo Lishma, which means for my own sake, to Lishma, in order to bestow. The actions are the same actions and only the intention changes.
[129415]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/14

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Question: Why does Baal HaSulam write in the article, ”Introduction to the Book, Panim Meirot uMasbirot,” that in our generation we will no longer fear an indecent student, who will take the wisdom of the Kabbalah and sell the materials in the market to many people, but they won’t find buyers for this merchandise, as in their eyes, they have already had enough of it?

Answer: After all, you see how difficult it is to disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah. Do people snatch up books of Kabbalah from our hands?  Even for free it is difficult to distribute them. If we were to distribute colorful pamphlets, they would willingly take them and would even pay for them. People are willing to travel distances in order to pray on the graves of the holy ones, but they aren’t able to invest a little time to study in order to understand the internality of what those holy ones wrote.

To sell the wisdom of Kabbalah in the market is called searching for ways to profit from what belongs to holiness. Selling blessings, red strings, etc., means behaving according to the desires of the market and not according to truth, for example, instead of giving morning lessons according to authentic texts, giving evening lectures for the public to talk about mysticism, about reincarnation, about the influence of the moon and magical powers of man.

Question: But we also disseminate the wisdom of Kabbalah and make it compatible for the public?

Answer: When we go out to the public, we must adjust ourselves to their desires, otherwise there won’t be contact between us. But this is not to say that we cheat people and sell them lies. We are speaking here of lowering the level, like for a child. After all, you don’t lie to a child, you only want to teach him. Therefore you lower yourself and begin to teach him bit by bit. That is something else. It is called, “educating according to the way of the youth.”

By disseminating are we telling them something that is not true? It is true that we choose interesting things in order to attract people, but in our explanations, there is nothing that is not correct. We teach spiritual subjects that have no connection to corporeality. And if it isn’t connected to corporeal life, then no one is interested in it!

The material of creation is desire, and if a person has no need for spirituality, then it is impossible to interest him. He has no Kli (vessel, desire), thus there is no place for the revelation of the Creator. A place is a deficiency. One must clarify what a person’s real deficiency is, what his needs are, and with that reach out to him. People want money, security, and education. One must reach out to them according to these subjects.

It doesn’t matter in what way the Creator presents our problem. I must work according to the conditions that He gave me. For me, these are the best and most optimal conditions to attain the goal. That is the main point. I accept, as given, that the Creator created these conditions for me. If I begin to work in the factory, I don’t complain to the boss about why he didn’t set up work conditions for me according to the way I want them and why the factory wasn’t built on the beach. I come to work and accept all the conditions and agree to the salary.

Thus, it is not important if the dissemination progresses with more difficulty or ease. I only need to accept the field of work in a more correct manner. I need to clarify the deficiencies in a more correct manner, find a better system in order to turn to people, to correct, to adjust, and to change myself in order to approach this task in a better way. This is the only thing I need to worry about: to accept all the data and to adjust myself to them.

The moment I succeed in adjusting myself to people, a connection is immediately created between us, like between a plug and socket.  Suddenly I discover that I am exactly suitable for the task before me. The only problem is with me, in that I don’t adjust myself to the world, to the nation, or to the conditions. There are no stupid, hopeless students, but only teachers who are not trained enough.
[129844]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We are all parts of one general whole and mutually complement one another as a result of the differences, contrasts, and oppositeness between us. This mutual complementing is obliged to emphasize and expose all the rejections we feel internally towards one another.

It is only by the right connection between us that we can find the ideal unity that will allow the revelation of all the differences and oppositeness between us, and on the other hand, the absolute whole, harmonious, and mutual cooperation between us. All the differences between us connect through our mutual love, mutual bestowal, and mutual agreement. When all the parts work together only for the sake of others, it makes their connection possible.

Question: How can we attain this realization?

Answer: It results from the great desire that each of us has to be filled with the Light. We have been looking for this filling, not only for many years, but also in our previous lives. Within a certain life, we stop and begin to dig more deeply into the question of how I can fulfill myself.

If we were all equal, we would be as one, but there cannot be much of the same thing. We can make many identical tables in our world, but there is no such thing in the spiritual world. There is no uniformity inside us, and we see it in people around us. It is thanks to our differences that such a global orchestra exists. In the meantime, it is not yet an orchestra, but a terrible cacophony (a combination of meaningless sounds). But if we bring them all together under the leadership of an experienced conductor, there will be a wonderful, coordinated, and harmonious orchestra.
[164394]
From KabTV’s “Conversations with Michael Laitman” 8/5/15

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Question: What is the mechanism of making the switch from the love of friends to the love of the Creator?

Answer: You have to undergo a series of states in advancing along this path. The previous state doesn’t disappear in the transition from one state to another. Each time the new state is built on the basis of intensifying the previous state. This is how it is in spirituality; it is as if we build a pyramid: the higher we ascend, the more we have to enlarge its basis below.

If the pyramid is low, a narrow base is enough, but if we want to reach great heights, we have to build a very large base for the pyramid.

This is the reason that first we adhere to the Kabbalistic books and their authors, which is called being in adhesion with the study and the teacher. This gives a person the right direction.

Once there is a direction, its fulfillment begins: through the connection and adhesion with the teacher we reach a connection and adhesion with the friends and we build a society, an environment. When we fulfill the building of the society, we begin to discover the need for the Creator’s bestowal in this circle. All this is described in great detail in Rabash’s articles, but a person doesn’t always see that. A person can see what the books say only according to his need for it.
[129538]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/10/14

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When the Jewish people entered the land of Israel, they had to continuously fight their egoistic desires. The first thing we should expect is a very long period of conquering the land, which means fighting an internal war among us and within each one of us.

Great hostility and hatred appear between us that is in opposition to our wish to unite in order to receive the Light of Hochma that shines in the land of Israel.

If we cannot receive this light, it will operate and affect us negatively by invoking different problems and hared towards everyone, including our friends and brothers with whom who we had good relations just the other day.

In the desert, on the level of Bina, we were one whole. Suddenly we began to fall into a dark and infinite abyss called the land of Israel. To where have we been brought? Yesterday we hugged each other, sat around the bonfire, sang songs together, and everything was fine, nice, and calm. What now?! Women cursed and enticed the men, turning them against one another, and children have become so stubborn! Suddenly one nation starts a war against us and then another! Different internal problems suddenly come up!

How can we make the switch from a peaceful normal state, while being only in slight adhesion with the Creator, and without knowing why, to suddenly want to overcome all these oppositions because it is the Creator’s command? We see how the transition to the future state is made difficult for us to begin with. We are told to get ready, for now you will begin to discover differences between you and life will seem terrible! You will not be able to unite! And by losing the unity between you, you will lose the connection with the Creator! In fact you are advancing towards the snake’s mouth, the one you escaped from when you escaped from Egypt.

Therefore, when we enter the land of Israel, we have to be prepared so that no interruption will stop us. We have to fight systematically, knowing that there is no way back and that we have to keep on advancing. We have to clearly understand this so that we will be able to succeed.
[164509]
From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/2/15

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Question: What must happen to create a new Kli (vessel) in a person above his present desires?

Answer: For this, first of all, there is a need for support that can be obtained thanks to the group, the teacher, the study, and dissemination.

Submission is the first and principle act regarding the Creator upon which, afterward, all the rest is built. After all, our desire is egoistic, so the first action must be the submission of the ego. Someone who is ready for this tries to implement what the group needs and what the teacher asks, to be stimulated by the learning, and to invest himself in dissemination.

The main work here is clarification through the emotion and intellect. After all, it could be that a person carries out many physical actions, yet doesn’t make any calculations about them, or the opposite, all day he makes various calculations, yet doesn’t realize anything. These calculations aren’t worth anything. This is only philosophy.

Everything begins from submission because without the submission of the ego and the intellect that serves it, it is impossible to begin to work above it. I must pull out my desire to receive, study it, and subdue it. Submission is the first activity on the way to adhesion. After all, with the desire that is in me now, I will not be able to get closer to the Creator in any way.

So, I bend it, criticize it, and clarify with which part it is possible to work and with which part it is not possible. I don’t have anything except a desire to receive, so I begin to learn how it is possible to change it, in which directions. For example, I approach the friends even though I don’t feel anything at all, but I understand that I must do this.

Thanks to this, by implementing changes in my previous state and bringing myself forward a bit, I correct my attitude. I sacrificed myself. I helped the friends. I carried out the advice of the teacher. I passed from the F₁ state to the F₂ state. Even though these two states are within my ego, there is a difference between them, a delta due to my change. I can learn from the example of the change that I made and the results that were received by using this as the first brick in building my nullification of the self.

I already have something in my hands. The state that I have attained is better than the previous state, and so I call it a “pleasant and kind bride” (Talmud Babyli, Ketubot 16b). I received a higher and more beautiful Kli, and so Beit Hillel (the school of Hillel) doesn’t force me to lie. It only shows me that it is up to me to attain this state.

Beit Shammai speaks about the present situation, whereas Beit Hillel speaks about a desired state, but one that will happen eventually. When I attain it, reach it, then, state F₂ becomes the main state for me. This state needs further work so that the F₂ state of Beit Hillel will become realistic. It is the point of view of Beit Shammai from which I clarify the desired state F₃ of Beit Hillel. That is how I continue and advance further.

However, I first use the delta between the states of F₁ and F₂ as the unit of measure: a millimeter, a centimeter, and a gram of correction. I use it as a model, as a standard, a scale of measurement, and armed with this, I can advance.

Question: What must be done to advance from state F₁ to state F₂?

Answer: It is necessary to see the two states from the point of view of Beit Shammai and from the point of view of Beit Hillel, “a beautiful bride as she is” and simultaneously “a pleasant and kind bride.” However, a person himself has no chance of seeing state F_2; for this purpose, he is given a teacher and the books that he must listen to. He must accept what is said by the teacher as truth, and the teacher says, “There is none else besides Him,” “the Good who does good.”

If he sees the bride only as unattractive as she is, then it is necessary to continue to work in a group, study, and disseminate. Respecting the teacher means carrying out what he advises regarding your advancement. This means carrying out activities and watching for a response of the Light, similar to a bride who must prepare herself, and only then will the groom come. The right actions will necessarily cause a response from the Upper Light.
[130221]
From the preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/12/14

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