If a person has no connection with the Creator, it is not called concealment. Concealment means that I know the qualities and character of the Creator, perhaps not one hundred percent, but to a particular degree. And I know that this is now concealed from me.

Suppose I know that my friend is in the same room as me and I can recognize him by particular features; so I say he is concealed now. This means that concealment is a kind of revelation. This is because I know that it is specifically he who is concealed. It is not that I have a complete lack of knowledge and detachment.

Concealment is a kind of attainment. This is similar to an expert who checks all the components. Suddenly he discovers that there is a lack of information somewhere that still needs to be discovered. Some unique facet of the phenomenon remains concealed. But everything else is revealed to him.

There cannot be concealment without there being revelation. If you don’t recognize a friend, don’t recognize his face, his voice, how can you say that he is concealed? When you say that someone is concealed, this means you know who he is. This is very important. In other words, concealment is an inseparable part of revelation and something essential for discovery.

Through concealment I awaken myself to what I need to discover, through what means, exactly what is concealed from me and why. In other words I develop Kelim in me for a sudden discovery. When I design and accumulate within me the right deficiency, then the discovery comes.

So then I see that this concealment was in me; through feeling this concealment, the Creator arouses me to discover Him. I don’t need to light a lamp in a room to see the friend. I only need to discover my inner Kelim, and then I will sense him on a more internal and profound level than if I were to turn on a light and just see.

The Creator actually awakens me through the concealment. In this way He says to me: “Yearn for Me a little more strongly, discover an even greater yearning for Me, then you will feel Me! Discard the lamp and the light that comes from it, begin to feel Me inside, my desire, my heart. We don’t need the previous light, instead we will have a new Light of mutual feeling between us.”

Now do you understand what the Creator is trying to attain through concealment? He awakens a stratum of more internal feelings in you.
[144059]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/27/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Why is an offense against a person worse than an offense against the Creator? Does it mean that a person cannot manage with the Creator unless he manages with those around him?

Answer: You cannot turn to the Creator if there are people in the world whom you have harmed. We can influence the Creator only through people according to the law of “from the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator.”

After all, the Creator is concealed and we can only reveal Him by giving to people. This is the reason that the wisdom of Kabbalah is called the concealed wisdom. It teaches us how to truly give to people in order to discover the Creator behind them. If we don’t know that, we will never be able to do people good by our giving, then we will not be able to bestow upon the Creator either. It turns out that we will end our life without any positive outcome.

Question: Suppose I have hurt a friend and want to make up with him. Is it enough to ask for his forgiveness as is customary before Yom Kippur?

Answer: Of course it isn’t enough if you only ask  for the friend’s forgiveness just to cleanse yourself before the Creator on Yom Kippur. In order to do that you are ready to give the friend anything as a gift as long as you can be sure that he will forgive you and you will be able to justify yourself before the Creator.

But this is better than nothing since we come to Lishma (for Her sake) from Lo Lishma (not for Her sake). Truly making peace with a friend means to start loving him, which means to restrict your personal desires and be truly ready to do everything for him. This is the correction of the intention in the heart when there is no self-calculation left, which means that whatever happens to me doesn’t matter. Such a correction called true bestowal is required of us and only the wisdom of Kabbalah can teach us it.

We may say that the essence of Yom Kippur is the summing up, the clarification, of how many restrictions I can perform on myself so that I can act in love of and bestowal to others after that day. Through the love of people I will attain the love of the Creator. The “day of judgment” is the day of my self-judgment.
[144712]
From KabTV’s “A New Life” 9/30/14

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Question: I have tried various ways to work with the ego, and up until now it is very strong within me. How is one to work with flattery, opportunism, hypocrisy?

Answer: We don’t work with the ego. We only work in the positive direction. In this way the negative side gradually changes into the positive. Under no circumstances do we spend time on anything negative and don’t cry that we have many attributes that aren’t good. That should bother us the least!

That is the work of the Light. The Light will come and correct everything. My problem is to attract it to me. But if I sit and cry and beat myself up, then nothing will come from it. We can attract the Light only by starting to raise its attributes in importance, through my friends, through the attribute of unity, by showing everyone that I want it.

Thus, our work is not in learning about my bad attributes, relishing them, wallowing in them, and crying bitterly: “See how bad I am!” That is the worst thing that can be done. By doing that we are blaming the Creator for making us like that. Since everything that happens comes from Him.

On the contrary, when we long for good and begin to understand and become conscious that all the bad is simply embedded and it seems worthwhile to us to rise above it and to long even more for good, then all of that becomes very necessary and important. But this is only when longing for the positive direction!
[144602]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: From what state is prayer born? Is it within absolute darkness when I have no enthusiasm and I understand that I cannot connect with the friends, or must there be some enthusiasm about this unity and connection, or must I reach the extremity of the limits of my ability, when I cannot connect with anyone, and from here the intention appears?

Answer: Neither the first, the second, or the third. Prayer is called a desire that is inserted into the system, summoning movement within it. As a result of it, the system is changed and rebuilt, and you rise one level higher. It could be that you don’t feel this, but you get advancement. An operation like this on the system can only exist when you ask for the others.

Question: But I am an egoist. How can I ask for the others?

Answer: You try mechanically, pretending as if you are asking for the friends. Be imbued with this, that they are around you. Even your experiences will be mechanical and false; this is not important. Above a lie like this, which is called “receiving for myself,” Lo Lishma (not for Her name), the Light will come in every case and begin to correct you. Actually, it is no lie; rather it is your true state. But if you, like a little child, try to play at being in the right state, then you will grow properly.
[144563]
From the Convention in St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: I was in Sochi for ten days and I saw how the friends worked hard, like bees gathering nectar from the flowers. I want to convey all of this not only to the group of ten but to everyone! However, it seems to me that I cannot do this, it is difficult for me. How do I overcome this fear, what do I do with it?

Answer: This is a good fear; concern for others is very helpful. But. at the same time, it must be together with the right attitude towards the Creator.

We must work together with Him like partners; this is what is missing. This is when we give half and He gives half. We give our desire, our deficiency, and He gives His power of correction to this deficiency. So we must feel that we are together with Him in a single dance, in a single movement, linked with Him all the time.

The wisdom of Kabbalah places you in front of the Creator and it begins to show you in what manner you can bestow to Him, in what manner He bestows to you, because there is nobody else besides the two of us. This is what is missing in our concern, in our anxiety and apprehension, to feel that we are in this together with the Creator. Try to feel that we are working together with Him as a couple.
[144561]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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 Question: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is the most significant day of the year for the people of Israel. What is the spiritual meaning of this special day? How should we relate to it in order to correspond to its spiritual roots and to transfer our life to a new degree?

 Answer: The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) is not simply a tradition. It reflects a special spiritual state in a person’s development. We shouldn’t look at this day separately, but as a part of the entire year’s cycle.

Upon the completion of a year, that being a cycle of internal changes, we evaluate everything that we went through, which is called “repentance.” Thus we decide that it is necessary to rise to a new degree, to begin the new year (Rosh Hashanah), cross to a new state, a higher, purer, more exalted one. So we crown the Creator, the force of bestowal and love, setting Him up to reign over us as the most sublime property.

This is when we begin to judge ourselves: are we truly in the property of bestowal? All our properties are divided into ten parts, ten Sefirot. And we are clarifying which desires in those ten parts can be corrected, and which cannot.

In essence, a person’s soul needs to be corrected. And a soul is all our desires, which are still corrupted and need correction.

 Question: What exactly needs to be corrected: one’s actions or the soul?

Answer: In our world, actions are performed with hands and feet, or through words. But the wisdom of Kabbalah explains that most important is a corrected intention, which is the true desire of a person.

Actions alone aren’t enough, because I can perform them simply out of habit. Then, it is actually more difficult for me not to do them than to do them. And these can be the actions that I otherwise would never have made in my life had I not been accustomed to them from childhood.

In this case, it is no longer fulfillment of a commandment but traditions instilled in childhood that are performed automatically. For someone it might be difficult to carry them out, but for someone else, it is difficult to not do them.

This is why we are not speaking about an action, but rather an intention. An action, after all, does not change: As we have been doing it, so we will continue. But in intention, in a person’s attitude towards the performed action, there is always change.

The key is a person’s attitude to those around him. After all, love for one’s neighbor as for oneself is the great law of the Torah. This is the point of view from which I need to check myself in order to see how much I am capable of loving my neighbor.

The upper force is a force of bestowal and love, and our goal is to become like it. This is why we need to reach the degree of man, Adam, which means similar to (Domeh) the Creator. But how can we check this? Where is that doctor who will irradiate me with an X-Ray and tell me exactly how similar I am to the Creator?

Such a doctor does not exist, so a person needs to check himself on his own. This kind of X-Ray machine requires a special Light, which checks us. This Light is called the Light that Reforms.

If I am studying the true Torah, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, then thanks to it, I start to see the truth. I see how egoistic I am, what exactly is it in me that is bad, and what needs to be corrected, as if I shine an X-Ray on myself.

This is only visible to me and others may not notice it. And after I have seen myself on the X-Ray image, it becomes clear to me what needs to be corrected. The Torah arranges this image where I only see intentions, and only to the level of the depth which I am capable of correcting. Everything else I do not see, and it can remain until the next year.

Immediately after the onset of the new year, I find myself in these X-ray sessions, which are called ten days of repentance. I irradiate my heart, clarifying my intentions with respect to those around me in each action, and get back these images.

Kabbalah explains that Malchut ascends to Bina and compares herself to it. Malchut is our egoistic desire, which rises to Bina, the desire for bestowal, clarifying the extent to which it differs from it, how far we are from caring for our neighbors, from good relations, and how we are only thinking about our own benefit.

 Question: What is shown on these X-ray images?

Answer: This image is black-and-white. It shows how much white there is in you, that is, the intentions for the benefit of your neighbor. And the black color points to the intentions for your own benefit, which you can correct.

Thus, the scope of our work is revealed to us. This is personal work that is in store for each of us, but it is aimed at the commonality, at bestowal to all, and through them, to the Creator, which is from the love of the created beings, to love of the Creator. The Creator is a force, integrating everyone together, and not something that exists outside. It is written: “The Creator dwells among his people.”

Thus, if I strive to unite with everyone and want to turn into one whole with them, then I reveal the overall integral system that generalizes our unity, which is called the Creator. This is how it is revealed in our perception.

Therefore, during Yom Kippur we need to strive to love our neighbor as much as possible and wider, and even beyond the people of Israel, extending it to all mankind. This is the reason why during Yom Kippur it is customary to read the story about the prophet Jonah, whom the Creator instructed to lead the city of Nineveh, which symbolizes the world, to correction.
[144598]
From the TV Show “The New Life” #438. 9/30/2014

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Question: For years we have been studying Kabbalah; we understand our path, strive to the property of bestowal. But at the last moment, fear arises about how to combine reception and bestowal, i.e., fear before the property of bestowal. I understand that it should be done not for myself but only for the sake of the Creator. How can we not be afraid of that?

Answer: Who gives you these feelings? Who controls your feelings and your mind? Who is inside you and causes you to have these perceptions? The Creator. So, talk to Him as He tightens the control in you, and sets up your sensual and thinking apparatus for a certain excitement.

For what reason is He doing this? If you begin to connect with His work and begin to explore what He causes in you and for what purpose. you will begin to feel the Creator and yourself as partners.

After all, He produces everything, not in you, but in your so-called desire, which He also created and upon which He is now working, causing certain disturbances within it. According to these disturbances, you have to find the correct answer of what you would like Him to do. Or, you agree that He does anything He desires, but teaches you how to relate to Him correctly. Start looking for the right dialogue with the Creator.

However, if you start doing this and do not take it through the group, it will not be the Creator, but only your psychological, emotional and mental conclusions. The Creator is within the group of ten. This is the problem of all the psychologists and other researchers who cannot understand where He hides.

Question: You said that the desire for the property of bestowal is manifested for a moment, and then we lose it, again feel for a moment, and lose it again. In order to feel our unity, should we wish this all together in one second?

Answer: A short-term collective desire will not help us. We need to accumulate a certain potential for a certain time so that our tension is correct. This is called “the world, the year, the soul” (Olam, Shana, Nefesh). That is, in spite of all the transformation that we are experiencing, if we direct this correctly towards the goal, unite, find the upper point between us, and adhere to it, then we gradually accumulate the required tension and the revelation of the Creator takes place.
[144609]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: We know that a group of ten friends is a spiritual Partzuf. How can I see ten Sefirot among ten “donkeys?”

Answer: The word “donkey” (Hamor) stems from the Hebrew word “matter” (Homer). Working in a group of ten, you will see that of these ten donkeys (matters), you are the lowest. Malchut and all the other nine Sefirot are higher, pure categories of bestowal. You are the only uncorrected egoist.

You will discover that the matter of all the nine donkeys is actually concentrated in you. This means that you are the greatest donkey with a huge ego and all the others before you are not people but angels, the category of love and bestowal. You will understand that no one in the world needs to be corrected but you, and that all the others are totally connected to the Creator! Only you alone are the uncorrected part of creation. You should look more closely and you will discover it.
[144556]
From the Convention In St. Petersburg 9/18/14, Preparatory Lesson 2

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Question: Children in the Diaspora usually go to Jewish schools called Hebrew school. These are special schools that are open on Sunday, where children learn Hebrew, Jewish history, and Jewish customs. Let’s try to imagine a school where unity is taught. What should it look like? What will happen there?

Answer: People learn there by connection, by playing connection games and by having discussions in circles. Of course, children also engage in physical activities like games with balls, etc., but they don’t play against each other, only together.

We must develop games that are not based on competition between individuals and between teams. Instead, a person has to compete against himself in order to properly be incorporated within the common activity and to see himself as his own competitor.

This doesn’t apply only to children, because the parents also have a problem. They must be taught the principles of family life and how to impart to their children a general, integral attitude towards that world.

The relevant issues should be discussed in circles where everyone connects and then the discussion should be continued and expanded at home.

Question: Is this what will make a child Jewish?

Answer: Of course, since a Jew is someone who yearns for unity and connection with everyone. A Jew is someone who knows that his role in life is to be a Light unto the nations and to bring correction to the world through connection. This is especially true in our times, in the time of the global crisis when there is no other remedy but the connection between all the parts of reality, in perfect harmony, in one circle.

Generally speaking, it isn’t about a Jewish school, but about a social community school where the whole family comes to practice connection. When they perform these exercises, they feel that suddenly a certain power surrounds them and changes their perception of reality so that the world seems different.

Connections and relationships begin to change internally under the effect of the force of the unity that is invoked by the Light, and it raises people to a new level of understanding. They begin to see the world as they have never seen it before, as if they wearing glasses that brings into focus the fogginess and blurriness of their nearsightedness, and they become as one connected picture, stretches into the distance.

This is exactly the feeling that both children and adults will feel, starting from their very first workshop.

Question: Will this connection help overcome the gaps between them?

Answer: The connection will not only help, but will also solve all problems. The connection gives us power, not in order to overcome hardships and to win, since when we are united, there is no one to defeat. The unity between us does all the work and drives away all our enemies, all the interferences, illnesses, and problems, everything that comes from self love.

At the same time, there is no need to give up our opinions and our beliefs, but only to add our exertion in order to connect with the whole nation, with all of Israel; that’s all.

This is what the Torah and current research of connection the wisdom of the crowd tell us. The Israeli nation must be the first to connect. Otherwise the force of connection will not be able to go through it to the nations of the world.

Question: Why is it the Israeli nation that has to pave this path?

Answer: Not everyone agrees that we are special, but history proves it is so. We are special because the whole world depends on us. Although this connection is invisible for the time being, the nations of the world do feel it. There are those who believe that their lives would be much better without us, but there are others who know that we need to change and that this change will be for the benefit of the world.
[141274]
From KabTV’s “Anti-Semitism” 6/18/14

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Question: How can we unite more closely around the events that are taking place in Israel? How can we affect and help strengthen the groups in Israel on the one hand, and at the same time, use this situation in order to advance and leap to a new level?

Answer: The point is not just about Israel, but that the Creator wants to raise the created being to a state of adhesion with Him. We have to see everything in a much more global manner and not be confused by what we see in the corporeal world.

There is a created being that includes the different levels of the desire and every desire has to reach complete compatibility with the Upper Light, with the Creator, and with the attribute of bestowal. This is what the Creator is leading us to.

The less egoistic, purest part of creation begins to yearn for the Creator and so it is called Israel, Yashar-El (straight to the Creator). Although in our world, even though this part seems the most egoistic, it isn’t so.

It fact all the nations of the world make up the whole great ego that is divided into billions of tiny pieces and so it isn’t expressed in its full intensity. The ego of Israel is concentrated in a small number of souls. How many people in the world yearn for the Creator? Let’s say a million such people and all the others number seven billion.

This is the reason that people think that we are much more egoistic: we demand to reveal the Creator, the spiritual world. We have to understand that we are one vessel (the vessel of the general soul). We have to yearn to go forward, and not to help Israel. Israel also doesn’t have to help us, but we must come together. The Creator has arranged these conditions for us that we don’t chose. They stem from the incompatibility between the Lights and the vessels, from the oppositeness between them.

The Light of Ein Sof (Infinity) is in a certain level of compatibility between the vessel of the world of Ein Sof at any given moment and they must reach absolute connection. The relationship between them determines everything that happens in the world.

Therefore, we have to accept this as an essential condition and see each of these conditions as the optimal condition that was chosen by the Light and the vessel. It is the law of physics that operates here and not anyone’s desire. It says in the Torah, in the language of the Haggadah, that this what the Creator wanted.

“He gave a law that cannot be broken,” and so we have to see objectively that every state that was given to us stems from the adaptability between the Light and the vessels. Although these states are very painful and unpleasant, all the internal and external states, the general and the private, were all given to us only so that we will connect more tightly among us. This is the only way we can fulfill them correctly.

The right fulfillment of each of these states is only in the connection between us that is aiming at resembling the attribute of bestowal, the attribute of the Light, until the Light is dressed, incorporated, and felt within us. We have to yearn for that at any given moment, despite the difficult conditions that the Creator gives us. Sometimes they are very unpleasant, confusing, humiliating, complicated and disturbing, making it difficult for us to understand what is actually going on.

By the way, this is the best state, which indicates that a person has transcended from one state to another, sometimes it may be very painful and accompanied by physical problems. I saw how my teacher Rabash used to go through them. He actually didn’t understand where he was and what he was doing. I used to take him by the hand and help him sit by the table and serve him a cup of coffee and then another, and then gradually we would begin to speak and come back to himself and turn to Light. But at first, he was simply a body that could hardly move.

We should understand that since each of us includes all of the desires, starting from the still, vegetative, and animate, all the way to the human level. We will gradually go through all of them.

We have to help Israel be together with us in one connection among us. All those who yearn for the Creator are called Israel. We have to remember our descent from Babylon and reach the state that all of modern Babylon called Israel yearns for the Creator. How? We do this by working together.

I hope that the Creator won’t leave us and will not hold back our advancement. The tension in the world will not subside, but will grow. Even if we are bombed, if there are demonstrations against us, or pressure put on us, the main thing is that we continue to yearn for the Creator above all that and bless every situation, since at least in this way we can develop. But we have to try to do it differently.

On the whole, we will later discover that by making one small change in our intention, we can change everything that happens in the corporeal world from bad to good. In one day our enemies and the missiles can turn into something wonderful and that is the absolute opposite! Together we will be able to do that and we will witness all of it!
[141248]
From the Convention In Toronto “Day One” 8/4/14, 1^st Meal 

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