Question: When my daughter was ten years old she crossed the street before a vehicle and I felt like I wanted to die. Can you call that true love?

Answer: It is a natural instinctive feeling you didn’t work for.

Question: But I have invested in her and raised her.

Answer: Every animal does the same. One way or another, this feeling comes without a purposeful exertion on your part. Therefore it isn’t true love of others. In your perception your daughter is not another but actually part of your own body; your connection and attitude to her remains on the corporeal level, on the animate level, and has nothing to do with the human level: man (Adam).

Question: So what is the human level? Do I have to love all of humanity like my own children?

Answer: No, not like that. First you have to check to what extent you love yourself, in every detail and in every situation. Then accordingly, you have to convey this love to humanity in every detail and in every situation.

Question: To be honest, I don’t only dislike them but I actually can’t stand them, and you speak about such love…

Answer: Yes, on top of this suffering you will learn to what extent you love yourself. Comparing to them, you will learn about your self-love.

Question: Today, the opposite is true: When I heard on the news that a certain leading politician would be going to jail I rejoiced and celebrated this. It seems odd that one can be glad to hear that someone else is about to suffer in the next six or seven years. I even felt pain as a result of my mercilessness. After all, what do I care if he goes to prison and sits behind bars?

Answer: The more others suffer, the better you feel. A person always examines himself compared to those around him. If you are in a place where people receive half a kilo of bread and a liter of water a day, a simple sandwich will make you feel superior to others. Now you don’t even look at it, but in that situation it would be very precious to you. Everything is relative.

Question: Does this mean that when someone goes to jail I should really hurt as a result?

Answer: Of course.

Question: Is this the love we speak about?

Answer: Yes, you should hurt as if you have been locked behind bars.

Question: Is that possible?

Answer: If you wish to feel that, the Light will do it for you. Then you will feel that you suffer with the whole world and then you will also be able to correct the whole world. Otherwise, you won’t be able to.
[135121]
From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/16/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Will whoever comes to the congress find his soul and begin spiritual life?

Answer: He will try to do this. Perhaps, it will be accomplished not at one go, but he certainly will move in the right direction.

Therefore, Kabbalists invite many people from everywhere to their congress in order to unite together. We sing, dance, listen to talks, lectures, hold workshops in circles, and have  assemblies of friends (Yeshivat Haverim). Thousands of people gather from all over the world, from the most remote locations, such as Australia, New Zealand, South America, Japan, and China.

Kabbalists gather all these people together and teach them how to connect with each other in accordance with the same method, which was founded by our forefather Abraham.

So, we increase the power of our connection with each convention. Gradually we come to such a connection, which will be enough to reveal our next state, the higher degree, the spiritual world. This is the goal of Kabbalistic conventions.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 2/8/15

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I don’t need to change my desires. I don’t need to limit, break, or suppress them but only direct them properly towards the right goal.

It is written: The Torah, “Leviticus,” 21:5: They shall not make bald patches on their heads, nor shall they shave the edge of their beard, nor shall they make cuts in their flesh.

First I choose two desires and find out how I can connect them so that together they will attain the next level by uniting on this level into one whole. Then on the next level, they will find more desires that can also connect and unite in order to attain a whole union on the that level. This continues according to a hierarchy, until the one uppermost desire connects all the other desires to such an extent that the Creator can be revealed.

Although the desires are connected and are focused on unity, they are different. The outcome is a mosaic in which each part complements the others until they reach perfection. On the one hand, the perfection is revealed in it, but, on the other hand, we see different parts, colors, and shapes.

We can read this mosaic and understand its unity since is it made of many parts. If it were the simple revelation and clarity of unity in the form of one white Light, it would be much more difficult for us to grasp it. But when a mosaic of desires plays a whole rainbow of colors, we perceive it as a melody.

Question: Doesn’t this colorfulness change into one color later?

Answer: It is perceived as one whole, but it is actually made of many shades. Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to feel anything.

We hear the harmony in music, and although there are thousands of sounds and different transitions, we perceive it all as general harmony, as unity. But if we simply spread out the system of notes (the score) into its components, it would seem as if there is no unity.

It is actually for this reason that when people from different nationalities, mentalities, and professions get together, they can reach the one single goal, the one desire. The more we ascend towards unity, the greater the difference we will feel among us so that we can achieve it.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 4/23/14

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Writings of Rabash, Vol. 2, “Igrot” (Letters), #42: How could they be as one man with one heart? After all, what the sages said is well-known, “Just as their faces are dissimilar, so their opinions are dissimilar” (Talmud Yerushalmi Berachot Chapter 9, Column3, Halachah 1). So how could they be as one man with one heart?

If we are saying that each and every one is concerned about his own needs, we find that it is impossible to be as one man. Certainly they are not like each other. Whereas, if they all nullify their own domains, and all of them are concerned only for the benefit of the Creator, then their opinions are no longer individual, since all individuality has been nullified, and all of them enter into the private domain.

And this is the idea of what was written, “the knowledge of the inhabitants is opposite the knowledge of the Torah.” This is because knowledge of the Torah is the nullification of private domains, as the sages said, “The Torah isn’t sustained except for someone who kills himself over it.” When he kills himself over it, this is for his own good, and everything that he does is only for the sake of heaven. And this is called a preparation for receiving the Torah.

We sense reality within our vessel, which is called the desire for pleasure. Each one serves this vessel that he gets from the start, and he does everything to fill it. I always make a calculation: how much effort to make for the expected benefit, is it worthwhile or not worthwhile for me to do it. How much do I need to invest to see fulfillment within my vessel? That is how we exist from moment to moment.

My dependence upon my vessel can be nullified only if we connect with each other, and if we agree to that, we begin to find new spaces in the connection between us that we didn’t feel before.

After all, we look at everything from the point of view of our egoistic desire that dominates all matter in the still, vegetative, animate, and human levels. In this way, we get impressions from our inner reality, yet it seems to us to be an external reality. In fact, this is my inner world that is stamped into my personal desire for pleasure.

The still, vegetative, animate, and human levels of nature are the levels—0, 1, 2, 3, 4—the levels of my desire to receive where I feel my reality. My ego is found between me and others, separating us and causing me to feel myself only.

If I try to nullify this tendency so that I can reach connection with the Creator through this nullification, I discover that there is another space that is different from the space of the egoistic desire to receive. I begin to feel that I am in a new space, in a sea of forces of bestowal.

All of these forces that are discovered in the nullification of the ego bring a sense of the Creator to me, and, even though I get a slight impression of this, in order to truly discover Him, I need a stronger means. After all, I can only nullify the ego and use it for the sake of bestowal through the higher force. I discover that I have no chance, no possibility, of reaching self-nullification through my own powers and understanding.

So it is written, “The Torah isn’t sustained except for someone who kills himself over it.” However, in order to kill myself for the sake of Torah, in other words, for the sake of correction, I require a higher force. As it is written, “And the rule of landlords is opposite from the rule of Torah.” When a person begins to get observations through the power of the Light, both his emotions and his intellect are made new and completely different.

Then, he understands that all of the contradictions that he had were only like stimuli for finding solutions. However, to resolve them is really only possible through the Upper Light.

According to branch and root, we are at the beginning of the Shavuot holiday, the holiday of the giving of the Torah. The Shavuot holiday begins in the evening and is divided into day and night. Night symbolizes the days of exile that are gathered for the night of Shavuot, so we learn on the night of Shavuot because we want to finish the exile and reach its end.

After that, we decide that we probably have already invested enough in self-nullification, and then we arrive at the day and that night, the same Kelim transform into Kelim of revelation. That is how we reach the festival of Shavuot, the festival of the giving of the Torah, and from then on we gradually can advance and constantly correct all the defects and learn how much we can be like the Creator when we discover how different we are from Him.

This difference between the truth and the image gives us depth in understanding the Creator, and then from this depth we reach adhesion.
[136403]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/1/14

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Question: If every person who leaves us is making a hole in our connection, isn’t our boat full of holes?

Answer: No, these people didn’t participate in the connection and didn’t intend to be integrated into it. So, we throw them away from us; simply throw them into the sea, into our collective egoistic sea called Malchut.

Question: Who is in this boat?

Answer: On the boat are those who want to be on the ship. The ship is the Masach (screen) that connects us, that joins us together. This ship is the beginning of the Kli, the first condition for our being on the ship so as not to drown in the great sea of our impure forces (Sitra Achra).

In the boat are the “points in the heart,” and under it is the great sea of our ego. And the ship is used as a protective Masach, like a raft on which we connect with our points in the heart and don’t sink. And around us the surging waves of the stormy sea of the Sitra Achra rage.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/2/14 Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We need to construct a line between the Light and the Kli, between the desire and the Creator. We do this gradually, according to 125 levels, building the right intention to realize ourselves only in order to bestow to others or the Creator.

To do this, I receive the power of correction from the Light that Reforms. It corrects me and gives me all that is necessary. But it is up to me to find a yearning for the goal within myself. I must be the initiating factor; otherwise, there is no creation. After all, if I want the Light to do everything for me, it is as if I don’t really exist.

Initially the Creator created the desire. It belongs to Him. I am that desire that rushes for Light according to the way it shines. A game is conducted with me from above, as was said allegorically by the Kabbalists , the Creator plays with the Leviathan that He created. With the Light, He plays—wherever it shines, that is where the Leviathan turns. But this still doesn’t mean that I truly exist, since for now I am completely managed.

Even though I understand and feel that my entire life is like a chase after bait, this awareness did not come on my account as a result of my efforts. I’m given the feeling that I am running after bait and that I’m not different from the still, vegetative, and animate nature.

But in addition, I am given a Reshimo (reminiscence) that arouses questions in me: “Why am I running? What is the benefit? What is the goal?” And then they give me one additional question, which is “What is the purpose of life?” And this is done so that I will now begin to work on my own.

As long as I haven’t asked the question, “What for?” I could run after various pleasures all my life, which is what the whole world does. We consider people who are prominent experts or famous scientists to be smart, even though they are chasing the lures like everyone else. This is not their addition since they really aren’t doing anything and have no freedom of choice. Look at the world through the filter of intentions and you will see emptiness. There is no nature of the still, vegetative, and animate and there aren’t seven billion people, instead everything is pure. There is no additional place that a creature must make by himself. Only in a few, in whom the true question about the meaning of life has awakened can produce an independent desire. Even this desire was given to them from above, but they need to “work” with it through working in a group.

So where do we get the power for this? Where do we find the method? How do we even know what is required of us?

That is why there was the Shevira HaKelim (shattering of the vessels). If there had been one creature, he would have had nothing to do; he would not have been able to do anything. It is no accident that Adam HaRishon (the First Man) was called an “angel,” because he belonged to the animate level. But when there are other people beside myself who ask the same question, then we can support each other through the connection of our questions. If we overcome our ego, then each one of us inserts his yearnings into everyone, his addition, the meaning of a life directed towards giving. And this makes it possible for us to advance.

That is how I use the desires that the Creator awakens in my friends. Even though these desires are not ours, we internalize them within each one in the group and this already becomes our work thanks to which we build an even greater desire, an “added value” in each one. Essentially, this is the way we realize the work of the Creator. It is clear that the Light is what realizes it, but we organize it.

That is how we reproduce the operation that the Creator was doing in Ein Sof (Infinity), producing a desire. Even though this is not a new and unusual creative act, in spite of it all, it is a true addition. The Creator began the creation and ultimately we complete it….
[110815]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/21/13, The Zohar

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Question: It says that “the desire is in the hearts of the children of Israel at any moment, and if they had really asked, they would have been rewarded with the presence of Divinity.” What does it mean, “If they had really asked”?

Answer: A strong desire means that we only want a certain thing and nothing else: only to be incorporated in one another and in everyone so that there will be no room for anyone in the connection among us, and actually a spiritual vacuum is formed. We have a great passion that only the Creator will be able to appear in that empty space.

Such a place is revealed among us, which doesn’t belong to any of us and at the same time belongs to everyone. There is nothing of our ego there. We discover an upper dimension in the connection between us.

Our ego is on the outside and we gather inside so that in the center there is an empty space that didn’t exist before. There is no such thing as an empty space, but here it is created and we feel that there is nothing there, not even the Creator.

We have created such an area by throwing our ego aside, and our passion to be incorporated in one another are connected in a pure intention, in our reluctance to regard the ego. Therefore, this place becomes empty and already belongs to another dimension.

The space in which we are belongs to the animate level and the empty zone is the place for the formation of man. This is where the Creator is revealed: the first ten Sefirot, which are us, the ones who are included on this connection.
[136613]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14, Shamati #66

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Question: What allows people in a workshop to come to the point where they understand that the answer needs to come from above?

Answer: We are the only ones with the system, which we received from above, and thus we are able to pass on the fact to people that only a discussion in a circle, only the workshop, gives the solution. This comes from above. It seems that this is a very simple activity, but, actually, it isn’t so simple since it raises us above the ego.

It isn’t that same primitive form of a circle where we sat around the campfire tens of thousands of years ago when the tribe lived as one commune. We are no longer able to do this today, and, besides that, everyone rises above himself in order to suit himself to the Light that Reforms. The role of the workshop and its goal is to let the Light influence us.

It seems that we are sitting around the campfire, as did those ancient people, but they were connected between themselves in a natural way, while we need to connect above our ego that controls us. Thus, we need the upper force to connect us.

When it connects us in spite of our ego, then that already provides the power of the Kli (vessel). To the extent that the ego strives harder to get out, the Upper Light operates more strongly internally. Accordingly, the inner stress appears that determines the depth and strength of the Kli.

You begin to play it—the power of a certain Kli and a certain Light—and then the power of another Kli with another strength of Light, and more and more. Thus, you begin to feel these changes within the transitions between them and begin to know the Creator.

The letters are the last level of TANTA (Ta’amim, Nekudot, Tagin, Otiot), which looks as if it is the most cumbersome of all the TANTA, but that is because we speak about the material that adjusts itself to the Light. However, that is the largest size of the compatibility between the created being and the Creator. You begin to play with your Kli on the entering and exiting of the Lights as if you are dancing with the Creator.
[137295]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/12/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How does one see everything that the Kabbalists wrote through a single formula called “connection”?

Answer: Connection is like the focus in a camera. Everything happens through a very small aperture that concentrates all the rays of light. If this focal point doesn’t exist, there is no passage for the light.

The first cameras were composed of a light-sensitive plate and a box with a small hole. That’s all!

The main thing was that all the rays of light were focused through this opening and reached the photographic plate. In fact nothing was necessary besides a very compressed opening.

This is what we need. This is the nature of unity that compresses everything into one; then the entire picture can enter through this tiny opening. The smaller the hole, the sharper and clearer the image is, with higher resolution.

This is apparently the opposite of how it seems to us. It seems that it is necessary to open the widest channel for light. However, this is actually realized through the smallest and most compact opening.

It is worthwhile to think about this example, for in it we see a comparison between a physical phenomenon and a spiritual phenomenon.

Question: What must we navigate through this opening?

Answer: It is not necessary to pass anything. The Light is found at absolute rest. The moment that the opening of unity is created, the Light will immediately enter into it and pass from one world to the other world.

The moment that we succeed in connecting among us in the form of an opening like this, which means that the moment that all of us succeed in compacting into one, we become a channel for the Light. This oneness transforms into a conduit of Light. And if this oneness doesn’t exist, the Light doesn’t pass through.

Question: As simple as it seems, it is difficult to apply this! How do we construct this opening?

Answer: It is a law of nature: If you are able, realize it, if not, then not. It is necessary to learn from nature, from the still, vegetative, and animate, and  to realize the same laws, but on the human level, to reach harmony and perfect nature on our level.

You have an example, so realize it on your level. This is difficult, but we offer you help. The Kabbalists of all generations wrote about this; they gave you a guide; they brought you to a group; what is left for you is only to apply it. It is impossible to do more for you because it would no longer be your work but that of the Creator, and then the creature would lose its meaning.

The meaning of all of creation is that an independent human will arise from it. Ever since Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction) a decision was made: The guest must achieve bestowal to the host. He must do this alone, and there is no room for compromise here. Through the connection between us we realize this state, this decision that was made.

The difficulty is just that we don’t ask the Creator to help us!
[136736]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/3/14

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Question: We often observe how there is a certain state of mind among people. The desire to change, lose weight, and the feelings of happiness or depression are transmitted through those airborne droplets. How can one perceive such sensations as personal sensations or as those imposed by the environment?

Answer: The more we delve into the nature of the system, the more we see that everything depends on everyone else. This is a deep, mutual relationship, consisting of thousands of relationships between us. Of course we do not realize it, but the connection remains; it is constant and can’t be ignored.

I can be separated, hidden on a desert island or in a deep forest, but as my distance from society grows, I condemn myself to a limited, miserable life. For example, if I were in space by myself, I would soon find that all of my senses had atrophied like a cell or a small piece of flesh that was cut off from the body.

The study of a measure of our communication with each other is very important because it puts us in a position that is relative to the true environment. First of all, it concerns human society and how I am supposed to be associated with it.

How can one discover such connections and learn how to feel them? In what form should we give and receive? in principle, that is our goal, and this means that we must study the integrated system—the means to achieve a happy life.

Comment: When something in us is uncorrected and we feel the reason, then we instinctively begin to care for ourselves.

Answer: We do not have any physiological or mental illnesses, or personal, family, or common global problems. There is only the fault of the system in which we find ourselves. Therefore, we see that politics, economics, finance, and the lives of nations and peoples are mixed and depend on each other.

If I try to dominate someone, then I definitely get the opposite reaction. At one time, Europe wanted to rule Africa and Asia, but now it is at the mercy of its immigrants.

Question: So, if I have something uncorrected, should I look for the cause within myself?

Answer: The interesting thing is that I am not the reason for this! I do not blame myself for the fact that I am who I am or the entire system for the way it is. However, I can help change the system, and then it will affect me. Actually, the method of integral education gives people an understanding of how the world works and how it can be managed.

Question: Suppose that I realize my condition is caused by the general state of the system. What should I do with such an understanding?

Answer: You come into a group of people who want to improve their quality of life as you do. For example, there are ten of us, and we begin to communicate with each other through a variety of exercises and games.

If we will connect properly, then we start to feel the connection over our egoism, personal motives, and habits. Sometimes, this feeling arises in a group of people bound by a common mission or in a family in which personal interests are inferior to the collective.

At that moment when we connect and become as one, this “one” becomes an integral feeling. Through such feelings, we begin to pick up the integral force contained in the world, just as a satellite array absorbs signals from space.

Question: How can such information help me in life?

Answer: Society is a closed system. If small parts are balanced, like the tenth we talked about, it will certainly make all of human society healthier. People will gradually see that with this approach, it will be possible to correct all human shortcomings.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 11/12/13

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