Question: After we conducted such a gigantic event as the convention, with great help and power, we could feel and understand its real results. What is the influence of this convention on regular people?

Answer: The problem is not how much the convention influences society. On this level the Creator doesn’t influence the world the way that we influence it.

The idea is that the influence of the Light on our world exists through the higher power, the control of the Creator and the influence of the Light through us, through our control, through our agreement, through that amplifier, that system that we ourselves create. This is a completely different influence on the world that the Creator cannot carry out by Himself. It is not in His ability! We can because we are on the level of this world and within it.

Suppose that my child is going to kindergarten. At home I cannot influence his behavior at all, so I ask his friends to influence him on their level and under their influence he will easily begin to change. But I, with my abilities, cannot do anything.

This is to say, what we did in this convention had a big influence. But again, there is a hidden part of this influence and there is a part which is revealed: a part which is revealed in the upper worlds and a part that gradually begins to be revealed in our world already.

First, we hasten the movement of the world; we shorten the time of its ripening.

Secondly, an understanding of the movement is beginning to be awakened among many people: where we are going, where this world is moving.

Besides this, individuals who are close to this are beginning to wake up, the point in the heart is awakening in them, just as it once was with you. And now under the influence of this powerful convention that we held and on the level of our world, a more intense influence of the Light is being revealed to them, and under the influence of the external surrounding field their point in the heart, their personal potential, is beginning to be awakened.

And the most important thing is that we have passed from the way of suffering to the way of Light in our world. We have truly added a lot of Light into it.
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Question: How did the children of Israel walking through the desert receive “Manna from Heaven” and were nourished by it?

Answer: They encountered new challenges and troubles each time as they increasingly revealed their evil inclination, and then they had what to pray for and what to clarify.

First, we have to feel bad and when the evil is revealed we begin to ask and to clarify why we feel bad. From inside his ego a person begins to clarify why he feels bad and wants to eliminate the source of evil.

If he is developed enough, he begins to ask about the source of evil, about the cause for evil, about the purpose of evil. This stems from the fact that he is already connected to the upper force by some inner sense. His desire to receive has already reached level four of Aviut (thickness) of the clarification. Then he feels that he is connected to the upper force by fate. This is why astrologers, fortune tellers and so forth are so popular these days. It all stems from the same reason, as waste material from the right search.

We advance in the desert and discover new problems and troubles that are connected to the upper force through a point called Moses. This means that there is already a system that belongs to holiness that includes studying and dissemination actions that tie us to the Creator.

There is also a corrupt system—this world, which we want to connect to us, and so we go out to the public. To the extent that we go out to the world, we can correct ourselves. But without dissemination we cannot correct ourselves in any way. It is thanks to the dissemination that we advance in the desert together with all our groups.

Thanks to being in the process of studying and dissemination each one begins to live more and more by his prayer, by his appeal to the Creator through the group. Then he feels that it revives him and so it is called MAN. MAN means that you adhere to the force of bestowal and you want to be in it.

You don’t yearn to fill your vessels of receiving, but you totally want to remain in the appeal, in giving. You are given these powers so that you can raise MAN, which is a request to remain in the desert and not to demand anything but the opportunity to turn to the Creator in any situation.

This is the work of clarification in the desert and you live by this work. You have nothing and you don’t need or want anything. Gradually we begin to feel it. This is depicted to a person only after a very long time since it requires an inner change of his systems, of the system of his soul. Gradually he agrees to be more and more part of these pictures.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/14

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Question: Prayer must be for my connection with the friends. So this sense of lack of connection, is this the prayer?

Answer: Prayer is not my feeling in relation to someone. Prayer means that I discover what I need to change in me and I turn to the Creator as my partner, that He is higher and the determinant, so that He will correct my relationship to creation. For the moment that I see something bad and I automatically blame Him. And in no way do I want to accuse Him.

The correction is possible only because I don’t want to condemn the Creator for how the creation seems uncorrected and evil to me. But not so that I or another will cease to suffer and will live better, or the opposite, not so that someone would vanish because it would better that some villain not live.

I don’t ask for their correction,but only for the correction of my vision. After all, I see evil before me because “All who condemn do so through their own flaws.” We need to work on this point all the time; to refine and clarify it more and more. And when I have precisely sharpened this point of view of the world I suddenly will see that the entire world is in line and everything is okay, everything is good and beautiful.

The Creator arranges the entire world in complete harmony and only intentionally shows me some kind of blurry patch sometimes here and sometimes there. So He plays with me portraying that there is something distorted here and there, and so forth. But all of this is so that I will straighten myself out, and then this entire picture will seem ideal.

There is always one picture, a picture of the world of Infinity, but I absorb this Infinity into my egoistic system and therefore see this world instead.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/6/14

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Question: How do we advance to a state of Hafetz Hesed?

Answer: Advancing is only possible through the Light that Reforms, in that we strictly carry out those deeds that the Kabbalists advise us to do. Here very strict, relatively simple, consistent work is required, that we must carry out time after time, while the Light influences us and brings us to the result.

But you do this strict work on your desire to receive, on your flesh. You really cut it, pierce it, and strictly continue with those activities. And all the time you are attracting a new illumination onto yourself, and then, “a penny and another penny accumulate to a great sum.”

Question: Must I invest some kind of demand, a special prayer on my activities?

Answer: Your demand must be not to demand anything other than bestowal. And this prayer is also the result of the influence of the Ohr Makif (Surrounding Light). We must pass through a process of detachment from our ego, and this is very painful. And in order to make this pain not too unbearable, it’s divided into very small steps according to a person’s ability to tolerate it.

If you want to hasten this process, the group is given to you. Try to share this process of detachment with it. There exists a unique patent, a wonderful opportunity here that makes it possible for us to do this, the helping Klipa (the egoistic forces).

We constitute one body, a collective flesh, only it is cut into many small pieces. If you were to now feel how they cut your living flesh into many pieces, you would not succeed in holding onto such a feeling. Just imagine that they are beginning to gradually cut piece after piece away from you. It’s impossible to endure this at all.

In order for you to not feel this pain, they gave you a feeling of a lack of contact with everyone. And in such a circumstance you can go through all of these actions. This egoistic Klipa that separates us from one another helps us to pass through these states more easily. This is to say, these two parts, both the Klipa and the Kedusha, are working towards the same goal.

The Klipa really works in the opposite way. If not for this, we could not endure. It disturbs us so that we will attain the best state because it’s attained through connection to a single whole, a unity. But on the other hand, it helps us to overcome the evil because it divides it into many parts. I don’t feel the evil, the disasters, that are happening to someone in some other part of the world. If I were to feel all of the sufferings of the world now, would I be ready to tolerate them? Therefore, it’s said that “the peel protects the fruit.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/14

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The Torah, “Exodus” (Ki-Tissa), 33:9-33:10: And it would be that when Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and He would speak with Moses.

When all the people would see the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise and prostrate themselves, each one at the entrance of his tent.

As soon as the Creator approaches a person, one’s egoistic desire falls, meaning it bows before the property of bestowal. To have the Creator descend to us, we need a correct preparation. All depends on our incentives and actions that trigger the Creator to gradually descend to us. Then, our desires change.

Question: Do worries and anxieties that we go through in our work mean that we approach spiritual properties?

Answer: In general, those are bad qualities since in reality a correct state is a state of joy. Joy has to be present at the time of our descents. This is exactly how we can check ourselves: Whether you meet “nights” (darkness that gives you a chance to rise) with joyfulness. Can we appeal to the Light from the darkness?

We have to convert all our troubles into enjoyment. There is no alternative, since everything comes from the Creator with one purpose: to promote our advancement. In order to succeed, we need support from our surroundings, a group. If you have a group, there won’t be any problem. The main thing is not to dwell on these periods in life.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/16/13

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How does the whole and an individual part relate to one another? How could a small group gathered by Abraham in ancient Babylon influence the development of all of humanity? Why does everything revolve around this group? Why does this group continue its “rotation”?

The problem of this world is that we “count” humanity as if it’s livestock. We evaluate humans by millions and billions; this kind of calculation seems sufficient to us. We just are unable to make qualitative calculations.

It results in a constant conflict between quality and quantity in this world. We proclaim that we are equal. However, how can it be true if one’s possessions are comparable with the assets of a billion others or if one’s health is worth the wellbeing of thousands of others? Are we really equal just because each of us has a body? Is it a criterion that should be used when evaluating human beings?

We are unable to “appraise” others because we lack true measurement tools. What are we comparing: feelings, intellect? How can we equate one person to another?

There is no equality whatsoever! Everybody is born with a specific set of qualities, thus each of us is unique. Even though we would like to be equal, we still are not. Baal HaSulam explains this issue in his article “Peace in the World”: “…we need to work very hard in order to attain true equality among us.”

It also is applicable on the spiritual path. Our spiritual goals are also quite different. Each of us has personal qualities, individual “destiny,” way of advancement, and a unique purpose in the whole system that serves as a common body where each cell is important but all cells and organs are still extremely different.

This explains why the role of Abraham’s group is so important: This entity of people attained a new purpose that was totally opposite to other nations’. Babylon was driven by an egoistic desire that increasingly expanded and enhanced, whereas Abraham’s group, on the contrary, focused on the will to bestow. Egoism can continue growing under the condition and to the extent of advancement of the altruistic desire, by faith above reason.

Abraham students’ advancement dramatically differs from the progression of other nations: The latter have developed intelligence, whereas the first group concentrated on faith. This explains why at the time when Abraham’s group faithfully followed its predestination, they were not developing sciences or culture such as music or dancing. They paid almost no attention to these things; rather, their major exertions were made towards spirituality. It was their only focus.

Later, other nations took advantage of the “fruits” of their work and on this basis they developed sciences, culture, and arts. For example, ancient Greeks borrowed the first “sprouts” of their philosophy from the wisdom of Kabbalah. Later, they admitted this fact.

As we see, the specifics of the relationships between the whole and a part, between small nations and the entire humanity, stayed intact throughout all of history and will be preserved in the future. As Abraham did, we collect friends from all over the world and entreat them to choose a common path to the Creator. Still, we remain a tiny minority. It’s supposed to be like that because there has to be a balance between the quantitative powers of all of humanity and our qualitative energy.

Both parts have to be harmonized. For example, if a small child receives a huge power, he might gravely hurt others, but if he acquires deep understanding of what he is doing without being given extra powers, then he won’t be able to implement his understanding in life. That’s why everything has to be balanced so that our body, intellect, and feelings are correctly proportioned while they grow.

It means that we can even become smaller to the extent of the development of the rest of the world. It is said: “They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them.” They will know Him through us, but they won’t join us by the millions. It will happen only at the very last stage of correction.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #53, “The Matter of Limitation”: …This is the meaning of, “Serve the Lord with gladness.” This is so because during the Gadlut it is irrelevant to say that He gives them work to be in gladness, since during the Gadlut gladness comes by itself. Instead, the work of gladness is given to them for the time of Katnut, so that they will have joy although they feel Katnut. And this is a great work.

This is called the main part of the degree, which is a discernment of Katnut. This discernment must be permanent, and the Gadlut is only an addition. Also, one should yearn for the main part, not for the additions.

In our work, we reach an intersection a crossroads, a fork in the road, after which we already have to measure our states along the spiritual road, either inside our desire to receive pleasure or outside it. Everything depends on where we measure our state, our success, our continuous progress.

If we measure it inside the desire, we are happy about the greatness: the height and the filling. It is the left line that pulls us to the side of the ego, according to which we aspire to see and to measure everything. On the right line we measure everything in relation to the group and to the Creator.

On the right line, we don’t notice the state we are in and accept every state as the perfect state. This means that we don’t take our feelings into account, no matter what the Creator sends us. We always measure everything according to bestowal, which means outside ourselves. On the left line it’s the opposite: I have no other thoughts but thoughts about myself and about what happens to me, and this is the only thing I worry about all day long.

Accordingly, the work along the two lines is different and it depends on what I demand in each state. If it is the right line, I demand to remain the way I am or worry only about how not to lose the direction to bestowal upon the Creator through the environment and through all of creation.

Here I work on my smallness in order to make myself as small as possible. I only want to bestow upon the Creator as much as possible and not to feel that I bestow or that He enjoys my bestowal. This means that I diminish the response in every possible way, cut off all the wires and all the ways by which I can get a response for my action of bestowal, which I try to increase as much as I can.

This kind of work is in maximum bestowal and zero reward. To the extent that I can perform clean calculations with regard to absolute bestowal without a reward, my spiritual level is measured accordingly (like Rosh-Toh-Sof). Thus I already stabilize myself and begin to mutually work with the Creator, as the Creator opens up more and more opportunities for me.

When I am stabilized on the previous level, I ask for more and more powers in order to increase my bestowal. Of course, I have to overcome my ego more and more in order to attain this and in order not to receive any reward in return. And what I do receive from the Creator I have the opportunity to turn into bestowal, and this is extra work in addition to this work. This is how we advance.

The problem is at the actual crossroads, the split that is created. This work is repeated on every level. As we ascend to the next spiritual degree, the shattered Reshimot (reminiscences) are revealed and I have to stand at this crossroads in order to be sure where the left line is and where the right line is. I cannot simply turn to the right and not look to the left at all.

This is impossible because one line is based on the other line. If I follow the right line correctly and reach a certain point, the left line also grows to the same extent, but I cut one line from the other, and so the “trunk” (Toch) and “end” (Sof) of my spiritual Partzuf are created. The place in which I calculate things is called “head” (Rosh). Thus I begin to build my spiritual Partzuf. This is practical spiritual work. This is all based on the picture of the world that the Creator depicts for me as a result of my attitude to reality.

Question: Where is the point of our independence in the drawing?

Answer: We are independent only at the crossroads, but it always exists. We have to constantly feel that we are at a crossroads, as it says: “They should seem new to you every day.” All the time we have to decide and always choose the right line, and instead of erasing the left line, we should advance me on top of it.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/2/14

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We need to feel that we are totally within the Light, like a body that is immersed in water. From all sides, my body is surrounded by water that is closely connected with all of my movements.

In this state, I need to feel that I am within the Upper Light so that through each of my tiny movements, in thought or in desire, in each tendency of my heart and brain, I immediately invite the Light to come to me. This happens immediately without any transition. I need to reach this sensation in my life.

All of us are drowning in these waters and receive oxygen only at the instant when we move towards each other. If our hearts are drawn to unite between each other, then we have something from which to breathe. If the heart does not want to unite, then we cannot breathe without air. We need to feel this state in our spiritual work: We are submerged within a sea of Light, like water, and the oxygen only depends on the connection between us. Thus we need to somehow force our hearts to strive towards unity.

The presence of oxygen depends on our closeness to each other. And then we begin to connect, not in order to receive oxygen, but in order to give joy to the Creator! How can we raise the longing to receive oxygen to longing to give joy to the Creator, even though I am suffocating without air?

In the end, we reach the state where we suddenly cease to need oxygen and feel like fish in water! We don’t even think about it, but only on how we can bring Him joy.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/14, Workshop

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Question: What is the connection between confidence and joy?

Answer: Confidence brings us joy. The feeling of confidence is a result of the special illumination that comes from Above and sustains a person as if on a pillow of air, thus filling him with joy.

There are two forms of confidence: confidence because of what I have in my pocket, to what extent I am stronger than the environment, or confidence in the environment, of how strong the environment is and the fact that I am incorporated in it, which means that my confidence depends on the environment. It is one of the two.

Confidence is the connection with the environment when I am either stronger than the environment or when the environment is stronger than me, but I am connected to it. The best feeling of confidence is when I am satisfied with a state of smallness. Then, I am surely in arms of the environment, feeling confident like a baby in the arms of its mother.

When a baby grows, he doesn’t feel the same sense of confidence he felt before. He already has doubts and is afraid of everything, while a baby in his mother’s arms doesn’t worry about anything, and that is the best time.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: Today, many of our friends are going out to meet the public who will be hearing about the wisdom of Kabbalah for the first time. How can we acquire faith through the public?

Answer: Faith comes from the Creator and the deficiency for it comes from the public. We, on the other hand, must be in the middle as the coordinators, as a link. We reach the public with our intentions to delight the Creator since they are the general vessel of the soul that is before us, and we want to make it one so that the Creator will be revealed in it so that we will delight Him.

By going out to the public, we should feel that we are the Creator’s representatives who have received a wonderful opportunity to delight Him. We show the public that we have such good will and an open heart, without any self-benefit or any demands, but only the inclination to do them good.

If we reach the public with this intention, we will succeed. We are in a state of Hafetz Hesed with regard to the public and with regard to the Creator, which means that we receive the ten Sefirot of Hassadim, the level of the priests (Cohanim). The main thing is to prepare properly, just like musicians who tune their instruments. This is actually the way we should calibrate ourselves, as if we draw the bow over the strings of a violin back and forth, thus checking the inner inclinations with which we go out to the public and the inner inclination with which we turn to the Creator. This way, the abundance, the Light, will flow through us to the public without any interruption on our part. The deficiencies of the public rise from the bottom and the Light descends from Above, the desires from below and the Light from Above.

Try to tune yourselves this way, and you suddenly will feel that you are managed totally on the one hand by the public and on the other hand by the Creator.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/5/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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