Question: Why is it so important to study Kabbalah specifically in a group and not at home alone?

Answer: This option is possible. You can get on the Internet and receive all of the information; the entire archive is open to you filled with video, audio, and text files. Certainly you can sit at home and study Kabbalah by yourself, but how will you realize it in practice?

If a person wants to become an expert, he must go through practical experience. Imagine a chef who learns how to prepare dishes by the books, but never sees a cucumber or tomato and so forth. What kind of chef would he be?

How can you implement the wisdom of Kabbalah on your own? Nothing will result. You must realize it in a group with friends because only through the right connection between you will you begin to feel what is written in the books. Certainly you can study at home, but you won’t get anywhere from this at all because you will not know what you are studying.

There are friends who study at home and don’t even want to come to conventions to meet with other people. They think that it is enough for them just to study. What can one say to them? They don’t realize their lessons at all. They don’t feel the material; they don’t discover the same world about which they are reading.

I could say much about this, but a person must understand that the wisdom of Kabbalah is grasped only in a group. All of the Kabbalists write about it.

If a person comes to us for lessons and opens Kabbalistic source books, in all of them they talk about it. But he doesn’t read them because he is too lazy. He doesn’t want this because then he would have to work against his ego: come to a group, take part together in events, be involved with dissemination, and so forth. So people like these leave us, and with this their Kabbalistic development ends.
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From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day Two” 7/12/14, Lesson 4

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut” (Mutual Guarantee): Thus, because of the above necessity, the Torah was given specifically to the Israeli nation, solely to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This refers to the souls that can be awakened by the Light that was in the state called Babylon.

First, the force called Abraham awakens inside Malchut, and then the evolution and the development of that soul is called Isaac and Jacob. This is only about spiritual systems and parts of the desire to receive, not about historical figures that are the external expressions of phenomena that take place inside the general Malchut.

In order to understand these phenomena, we must look a bit more deeply into how Malchut is awakening to correction. The system of first man was shattered, then it was stabilized in a certain state, and now it should begin to correct itself from a state called Babylon.

The ego develops as a result of a special Light called the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif). There are parts of the desire that descend as a result of a greater Light, and that means that the ego grows, building of the tower of Babel. There are other parts of the desire that yearn upward as a result of the same Light.

The part that ascended to the top is called Abraham, and, in contrast to it, the part that descended more than all the others is called Terach. The upper Light influences the desire and develops it, and so the movement is both upward and downward, as it is written, “He who is greater than his friend, his desire is even greater.” One is greater than his friend since, like Abraham, he yearns upward, and his desire is even greater like Terach who descended downward. Later, the vessels (desires) that relate to Abraham become clearer. Anyone who is attracted to Abraham as a result of the influence of the Light that Reforms is called Yashar El, Israel (straight to the Creator). Their correction is to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

…For it was inconceivable that any stranger would take part in it. Because of that, the Israeli nation had been constructed as a sort of gateway by which the sparks of purity would shine upon the whole of the human race the world over.

The same people, the same souls, the same parts of the desire, have become GE (Galgalta ve Enyaim) with regard to the lower part of Malchut that did not manage to wake up, and are called AHP. This is how the passage of the Light through GE to the vessels of AHP was created.

Now there remains to complete what we have said above (Item 16) about the reason why the Torah was not given to our fathers, because the Mitzva, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” the axis of the whole Torah and around which all the Mitzvot revolve, so as to clarify and interpret it, cannot be observed by an individual, but only through the consent of an entire nation. And this is why it took until they came out of Egypt, when they became worthy of observing it.”

This means that it isn’t enough that only the souls of Israel that came out of Babylon and ascended upward should correct themselves and observe the Mitzva (commandment) of love thy friend. They must be connected with at least part of the other souls, which means that they went down to Egypt. It is from Egypt that they take out the vessels of AHP of GE.

The desires of GE, called the patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, came out of Babylon, and then they received AHP from Egypt and came out with them, are mixed with them, and are shattered. That is, there is the destruction of the first Temple, the shattering of GE together with AHP.

Then, they are ready to be mixed with the rest of the desires of Babylon and reach correction. At the end of correction, we also correct the vessels of GE first, and then AHP. However, here, the stages are different. When the vessels of GE correct themselves, the Light is poured through them unto the nations of the world and begins to bring them closer to GE. So, the more that the vessels of GE correct themselves, the more AHP is corrected.

We are in the phase of the end of correction now. We already have been through the destruction of the temple, have been mixed with the vessels of Babylon, and the only thing left now is to correct the desires of GE, and, through that, AHP will be corrected. We will feel that the Light is spreading through us and the entire world begins to behave differently. It will be a real miracle when all this happens.
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From the 5^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/17/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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We can extract a force from nature that will change us so that we will not harm others. We will recognize the fact that we depend on one another and by that correct ourselves. This is how we can reach people and explain to them and suggest a way to establish new and better relations.

We have the power by which we can correct the bad relations between people and thus make our world a better place. If we manage to do that, our life will be good and beautiful.

This change will be done by the force of correction that we bring people, but in order to draw this force, we have to have a totally different intention, an intention of in order to bestow unto others.

The desire to live a good life in the connection between them will be enough for the mass of seven billion people. In order to do that, we have to organize workshops, roundtables, and meetings at homes for them. They will hear how connected we are to one another and how dependent we are on each other, and eventually they will understand that it is worthwhile to change our nature. Otherwise we will be like the scorpion that stung the frog that carried him on her back across the river, and so they both died. We will not be able to do anything good with our egoistic nature; we have to change it.

It isn’t enough to watch movies about how connected we are to one another. We have to change our nature practically. There is a huge gap between a movie and actual fulfillment. We know that we can use nice words during the friends‘ meeting and then go out into the street and behave like ordinary egoists. We have no choice, it is our nature.

But having good intentions are enough for seven billion people. We will reach them with the Light that Reforms by holding workshops, and then, through us, they will receive the power from Above that will change them and correct the relations between them.

But our desire to receive is much greater and we have to really change our intention so that it will be in order to bestow. The difference is that we have to stop being egoistic, and all the seven billion only receive the power not to sting one another because everyone begins to understand that if he stings the other they both drown in the stormy river, like the fool who sits in a boat and drills a hole in the boat underneath himself.

A person can guard himself so as not to harm others by the force of the Light that he receives. He knows that he mustn’t drill a hole in the boat because then they will both drown in the ocean of their ego.

As a result of integral education, a person begins to feel that all of humanity is one body, and that he has to treat everyone like one family. The Upper Light allows me to feel pain when I prick someone else. I feel it myself and say “ouch,” and it isn’t that he suffers, but I suffer since we are one body, like hitting your foot but feeling the pain in your head.

This is how all the people in the world will connect and will not need to work against their nature. Their work will only be in workshops, and by connecting, they will begin to feel that they are interdependent, like ants that live in one big family, billions of ants in one nest.

That is, they will not have to reach the recognition of their own evil nature. Nature is nature, but only the connection between us grows so strong that we will really feel it. We will see the system of connections between us so clearly that if I do something bad to someone, I will feel bad myself.

This is called love thy friend as thyself, and it is no wonder. It is only the revelation of the natural system in which we are connected to one another.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/14, Shamati #60

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Question: We conducted ten meetings on the subject of the wisdom of connection (Integral Education). As a result of them, five to seven active members were participating in the circles every time. They tried to conduct meetings like this by themselves, but they didn’t succeed. So, they understood that they couldn’t do anything without us. What else can be done for them?

Answer: You must teach them the method of integral education and information, and the wisdom of Kabbalah. Then, they won’t have problems. It is necessary to give them basic information about how the Upper Light manages the world: through Tzimtzum Aleph (the first restriction), a Masach (screen), five worlds, Partzufim, and Sefirot.

Question: But they don’t want to study Kabbalah. They simply want things to be good for them at home and at work.

Answer: Kabbalah speaks about how to realize the desire of the Creator, which is to give pleasure to His creatures, for He is good and does good, and providing benefit for people means raising them to His level.

Things will not be good for us as long as we haven’t attained the upper Light. And, in the system Kabbalah speaks of, all five worlds are what are found between us and the upper Light. Until we create a structure within us that includes them, until we correct our whole internal mess, all the division and fragmentation, so that there will be one straight line between us and the upper Light in all five levels, five worlds, five levels of Aviut; we will not feel well.

It cannot be otherwise! Even if people start another war, it will not solve anything. So, it is necessary to tell them about the inner structure of the world, but in the meantime, using other words. Tell them about the ego, about the possibility of fulfilling it. Conduct integral circles. Without them, it is impossible to disseminate our method.

People need to understand why our unity works. Because it has a power that doesn’t exist in our world; it is much higher.

Question: But a need is created in people to conduct the circles by themselves.

Answer: It doesn’t matter! In children, as with apes, there is always a need to imitate the adults. The child looks at what his father is doing and tries to repeat it by himself.

There are objective laws in nature that cannot be bypassed. If there isn’t any internal connection of the active members that you mentioned before with us and with you with the other groups, then nothing will come of this either. Only this connection works. This is because we also cannot do anything without our groups. Everyone must be together. So, those people who want to work must feel that they are a part of us.

Question: Does this mean that we are above them, that we will never be equal?

Answer: Never. The hierarchy will remain a hierarchy forever. Your Reshimo will be discovered before theirs, and so this chain reaction is permanent. I always will get spiritual advancement from my teacher Rabash, and you will get it from me. However, my connection with you produces a circle. I don’t have one student. Rather, there is a central circle. It is amazing how everything is happening in our generation.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/09/14, Discussion on the Conclusions from the Activity in Sochi

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In fact, we are found in the world of Infinity; there is no other state. However, in our minds, in our senses, as a result of our desires being egoistic and damaged, we feel a state called “our world” instead of the world of Infinity, and so, in principle, the only thing that we are doing is correcting our senses, correcting ourselves.

Question: If I want to feel the Creator, is it enough for me to sit in a circle and be integrated with the friends?

Answer: Theoretically, if you were in a circle all the time and were to work on your connection with them all the time, then you would have no more need for anything in life, nothing!

This is the ideal physical, mental, and emotional form within which it is possible to work on all of the nuances of our connections, all the way to the spiritual ones, without exception.

Question: And nothing additional is needed?

Answer: Not exactly. We must go out to the world and take all kinds of problems from them. However, again, this is to increase the connection between us even more.

Suppose that we completed some mass of work among us, some egoistic density, and we connect. However, this is not enough to reveal the Upper Light. From where can we receive an addition? We begin from within our circle to go out to disseminate, attaching an egoistic mass to ourselves, an even greater density, and this helps us to come closer between us because we are working above it.

We must go out to people in this manner. However, in principle, all of our work is within, in our circle.
[139470]
From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day One” 7/11/14, Lesson 1

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Question: How must one work optimally with the negativity every person and every group of people gathers?

Answer: We don’t work with the negativity in us. I don’t want to know or hear about it, I don’t want it to burrow into me.

First of all, this is very unpleasant, and second this is called eating oneself, as it is written, “The fool folds his hands and eats his own flesh” (Ecclesiastes 4:5). “Look, I am like this! And why did I do this at all!? In my past there are things like these! … And in general, all my life …” So, all of this is incorrect, absolutely erroneous.

Our attitude toward our correction must be positive; I am going only toward the good, only toward the good!

This is because if I think about something bad, I am not connected to the Creator, not aimed in His direction. If there is already something wrong, this is a sign that the Creator is to blame, and, if I am bad, this is also a sign that the Creator is to blame, and if there will be something bad in the future, then it is certain that He is to blame.

This means that I don’t have to think about this at all. I only need to invest effort to connect with others. This is what I need, and it depends upon me!

All the rest doesn’t depend upon me. So, why do I need to think about this? All the rest will be absolutely ideal if only I constantly concentrate my attention on maximal, optimal connection with others in a circle, because a circle is the image of the Creator.

Question: Does negativity belong only to one person or can it belong to a group of people?

Answer: Certainly a group has its common ego, and we need to rise above it. We hold onto only positive thoughts. We don’t criticize ourselves or others in any way. We try to rise above our ego all the time and connect there.

So, in principle, a person cannot be in such a state where he is not in excitement and elation, where he feels negative emotions, and,if he has states like these, this means that he is not in contact with others and especially with God.
[139467]
From the International Summer Camp In Bulgaria “Day One” 7/11/14, Lesson 1

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Writings of Rabash, “Shlavei HaSulam“, 1986, Article 15, “A Prayer of Many”: Therefore, he prays for the collective. This means that if there are a few people in the collective who can reach the goal of Dvekut with the Creator, and this will bring the Creator more contentment than if he himself were rewarded with nearing the Creator, he waives himself. Instead, he wishes for the Creator to help them because this will bring more contentment above than from his own work.

If a person doesn’t join the collective, he has nothing to turn to the Creator with. After all, the Creator doesn’t feel individuals, He only feels the collective.

This is why we have to go out to the public and why we have to connect. Everything belongs to one system, and it is impossible for one part to work when other parts do not.

During human evolution, our work was performed parallel to our waiting. Kabbalists who wrote The Book of Zohar concealed it for two thousand years until our days. All the parts of the Bible they wrote about, the Torah, the Prophets, and Scripture still had to be developed.

But we are a special generation, as Kabbalists say, and we have to perform a practical correction both inside the group and outside the group, among the public. The relationship between the members of the group, the group and society in general, between the individual and the collective, is the only framework where we can raise our request.

Even if every member in the group asks for it, we cannot advance unless our request is incorporated into society’s desires. This is the only way the Creator will listen and feel us. After all, the Creator is the general force, the Upper Light that has created the whole desire to receive. Therefore, it only feels all of its parts together. If we regard Him that way, as a whole desire, then we will be able to convey our deficiency to Him and ask Him for correction or for revelation. Only through the collective can we formulate the correct request that He connects.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/13/14, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can I work with myself if I feel tired from the effort to remain with the right intention because I don’t get any pleasure or results from this?

Answer: Of course, a person is not ready to do this. The group must support him. It is up to us to find an action that on the one hand we are ready to carry out, meaning that our desire to receive makes it possible for us to do it because it sees some kind of benefit in it. On the other hand, as a result of the benefit that we get within the desire to receive, there must be something that will change us.

For example, I bring some medicine for my sick child. For him this is candy and for me this is a medicine. For him this is “yummy” and for me it is a cure. Why? Within his desire to receive he swallows and enjoys it for he has the strength to swallow. He gets pleasure within his desire to receive, and together with this, he gets a medicine.

So, the Torah is called an “elixir of life,” “health to all their flesh,” a medicine that we take in this form. This is called the “clothing of the Torah.” So it is up to us to be creative and wise, not opposing our nature, but understanding it and recognizing how it is possible to fool it so that on one hand our ego will see the purposefulness in a particular activity. On the other hand, if I act with joy, I also get a portion of the Light that changes me. So the next time I will already want to perform an activity that is a little closer to bestowal.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 6/23/14, The Zohar

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It is known that we are under the total control of higher management, but this knowledge remains only empty words if we don’t feel it and don’t live in it. it is our job to respond to the influence from above every moment, to seek who the Supervisor is in everything that is happening. This means that I don’t just comprehend what is happening to me, but “with mind and heart,” with thought and feeling, I attribute everything that is happening to the higher supervision, apart from which there is nothing. I understand that everything is happening to connect me to it, and as it seems, it is up to me to be ready for it. If I am not ready for this, it is my problem, perhaps because of my previous shortcomings.

Baal HaSulam writes that if the angel that is sent from above cannot take care of a person and bring him to adhesion with the Creator, then the Creator replaces this angel with another one. So we need to understand that we have been lagging with our corrections and they are approaching their realization naturally. They are beginning to be more and more perceptible.

We find ourselves lacking time, and the situations through which we are passing seem more and more complex. In this way, they are pushing us towards the right solution, and from our side what is required is only to invest more effort. There is nothing to do since the whole world is approaching difficult times, as are we.

It is not necessary to wait for things to be easier, on the contrary. Our goal is to connect and from this connection to understand how we can understand the higher management correctly. People who belong to the fourth level in level four are called Yashar-El (Israel) because in them the yearning to discover the supervisor is awakened. And to direct ourselves towards Him correctly, it is up to us to connect. By searching for the right connection, we find how to relate to every moment to discover in it the action of the Supervisor and the Supervisor Himself, to reach adherence with Him and advance in this way.

All the while that we don’t discover the Supervisor, is called “exile.” And every moment that we discover Him within the concealment, within the exile, is called “redemption.” That is how it is necessary to accept our states until we connect all of our efforts into one collective effort. And with its help, we discover the Supervisor with an intensity of “six hundred thousand souls.”

And later on we begin to recognize the Supervisor in all His depth. We don’t just discover Him, discovering that He exists and acts on us; rather we discover all of His expressions. He always stands in front of us through various images, and in spite of all the unpleasant states, we want to discover Him and adhere to Him. That is what we discover; we investigate Him and adhere to Him more and more until we reach the absolute adhesion called the end of correction” (Gmar Tikkun).
[139309]
From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 7/4/14

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Question: How does one effectively use envy for the purpose of advancement? It seems to me that my ego simply tends to close so that I don’t deteriorate downward.

Answer: You don’t need to make yourself the master of your destiny. What is needed from you is only some effort. But you have to give it! All the rest is not up to you.

The important thing is to try, like a child, who doesn’t even know where and what he is supposed to do. He tries! And that is what buys him the mind and inner growth.

Thus, I must act with full consciousness that I am doing all that I can in that I am trying to understand how to impart the greatest seriousness in my actions. But at the same time, one must exactly understand what these efforts demand so that they will raise me.

If the child doesn’t invest efforts, he can’t attain the correct results. We see in the stages of inanimate, vegetable, and animate that everything is programmed. We need to invest efforts, as if our development doesn’t depend on us. Do you know your future state? Does the child know what his silly jumps and games need to bring him?

Understand, you go in friendship with the Light, it is your partner. Go to friends, make an effort, and the Light will complete everything. You will feel that it lives in you, that it is working through you. Just exactly as you synchronize your pulse and thoughts with friends, you need to synchronize with it.
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From the Sochi Convention 6/10/14, Lesson 3

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