Entries in the 'Group Work' Category

My Half A Coin

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Torah, “Exodus,” 30:14-30:15: Everyone that goes through the counting, from the age of twenty and upward, shall give an offering to the Lord. The rich shall give no more and the poor shall give no less than half a shekel, with which to give an offering to the Lord, to atone for your souls.

Every person gives half a Shekel since the person one connects with adds the other half. Everyone should first unite in tens, then to hundreds and thousands.

It turns out that everyone brings only one half of his own and we can manage between us in such correct mutual cooperation. The point is that the individual’s positive attitude to the world, his love for it, leads to nothing. This is the principle of dissemination.

There cannot be one righteous person while all the others are wicked. I have to help all the others be like me in mutual cooperation and must establish a field of mercy, warm welcome, bestowal, and love. It’s only then that the Upper Light descends on me.

No one can advance if he doesn’t help others. Here we need the friends and the group. Half a Shekel is my half that I put into the collective treasury. What is more, it’s considered half a Shekel only when I awaken others to give the other half.

When each of the friends gives his half, the Upper Light, called the Torah, descends upon these efforts and connects them. This is called, to make atonement for your souls, which symbolizes purity, birth, the revelation of the general soul, the general connection between us.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/2/13

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Citizen Of Two Worlds

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How is the “middle phase” between this world and the spiritual world discovered?

Answer: The transitional phase between this world and the spiritual world is the physical group where we can begin to establish spiritual laws. This is a wonder in this world: deeds which are Lo Lishma (for my sake) can bring us to Lishma (to bestowal).

In other words, we do all kinds of deeds artificially, with false bestowal. Yet they advance us because there is a transitional level between the spiritual world and this world. This intermediary level is a person who is comprised of two parts: one within the other. Therefore it is possible to build an external group of people to carry out external actions and to awaken internal actions within them. This is as if we have two parts from different worlds in one “medium.”

And therefore a collection of people, a Minyan (ten people), become the ten Sefirot that intervene between this world and the upper world.
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Positive Instead Of Negative

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How can a person open his desires before the friends on the corporeal level as well as on the spiritual level?

Answer: Everyone should feel that they are in their own family where you can be sure that no matter what happens, it is all yours. All the problems, the outbursts, the disagreements with the children or the spouse are all yours and you have to fix things no matter how difficult it is. So try to treat the friends that way and see; check your heart to see whether it is really inclined to respond that way, whether it has this inclination, and whether it is ready for that.

We must develop our connection until we reach the level of mutual guarantee. Mutual guarantee is when I am ready to respond this way to everything for the sake of everyone, like a mother with regard to her children. She is ready to be responsible and to provide her children with everything that they need. This is natural and everyone understands this in our ordinary life. This is why we live in the corporeal world. Later this world will disappear and we will see forces instead of bodies. This world is called fictitious because instead of forces and qualities, we feel the body as the still, vegetative, animate nature, and people, which are all matter. But later we will see that these are forces of receiving and bestowing.

This world is given to us so that we will be able to ascend from this lowest point without being forced to or pressured to from Above. If we could see the spiritual world, we would lose our freewill. We would want to do everything according to what we see. So the concealment helps us to be free and puts us in a state where we can grow freely.

Adults move away from children in order to allow them to do things independently. It is the same here as the Creator conceals Himself to a certain extent and helps us in different ways “behind the scenes.” He gives us clues by showing us exactly what is wrong and what needs to be corrected. Our job is to remember that we are constantly shown our deficiencies in a negative manner and to constantly try to change the negative to positive.

Then we will be grateful to the Creator for treating us this way and teaching us in different ways, showing us the picture of all our attributes in an opposite manner, in their negative form. We want to connect this negative picture with our attributes, desires, and thoughts and make them positive. This is why we are in a constant search.

This is called the work of the Creator, which is done on top of everything that surrounds us. If we regard all these things spiritually, it will be spiritual and it will become our spiritual world. It is said that “the Creator did not change its original action of creation.”
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/14

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Open To Connection

Dr. Michael Laitman“Israel” means “Yashar-Kel” (straight towards the Creator). This is a person who reacts to influence from the Creator within himself and is ready to react in regard to Him. The Creator sends the “burdening of the heart” to us and it is up to us to surmount this, and to the degree that we surmount it, we begin to enter into a connection above all the disturbances, above all the egoistic desires, above all the thoughts that weigh upon us and which don’t direct us towards equivalence of form with the Creator.

When we rise above these disturbances that the Creator sends, we are called Israel. And if we sink within the disturbances and yearn to alleviate our condition, to become as comfortable as possible at every moment, then we remain on the level of corporeal, material existence.

Eventually, after undergoing very many trials and disappointments, “A penny and a penny are gathered into a large amount,” into a higher level. And then we begin to feel that we won’t agree to continue life this way. It is clear that this development can only be by means of the Light that ultimately brings us to a state of Israel, the yearning “straight to the Creator.”

The states through which we pass accumulate. We must pass through a multitude of actions, which within our ego, we don’t agree and don’t want to endure patiently. For our ego we want everything to happen quickly and pleasantly; but according to the relation between Lights and Kelim, it doesn’t happen this way. This continues until the desire to receive ultimately decides to be transformed, changing to an intention “for the sake of bestowal.”

This is like a pendulum that goes up higher and higher in two directions until in the end, it transforms at the highest point, reaching an intention “for the sake of bestowal.” And then all of the movements forward and back, right and left, up and down, in all directions and in all forms, everything enters into the volume of the new Kli that receives an intention “for the sake of bestowal.”

Therefore it is said, “I labored and found.” We must invest maximal effort until we reach this finding. And the finding arrives from Above. Even just a moment before this it is impossible to know when it will happen. It is forbidden to reveal this secret and to talk about it, so that we don’t sweeten this period too much for a person whose ego must be restrained.

Baal HaSulam laughed about the complaints of his students and said, “I am happy about the wicked that are discovered”. I remember when I was studying with Rabash, I was angry and demanding and encountered a very dry response from him that did not seem appropriate from a person who loved me. I thought that the teacher hated me, so happy was he with my difficulties. That is how it really seemed to me in the beginning of the study in the first half year. He would simply laugh in my face in response to my complaints.

I was really furious because I had invested so much effort; I did everything that he required from me, and he wasn’t at all merciful to me. But all this was only not to weaken this feeling of bitterness and despair in me. This is because if we soften this feeling, the time is lengthened. There is nothing to do; we must bow our heads and continue to accumulate our overcoming.

It is true that it is possible to “get your world in an hour.” Our efforts can be gathered very quickly and we can suddenly reach revelation. And truly there are signs that we are very close to revelation. But the last effort has a unique quality. And all of the quality that is attained depends upon the connection between us, in its strength and directness. For this we must open ourselves maximally so that not one thought or desire will remain that we wouldn’t reveal to everyone. This is the way each must examine himself, both men and women.

The work of the women is different from the work of the men, it is earthier, and that of the men is more spiritual. The men are more connected with the Creator and the women among themselves, overcoming rejection. This requires much effort.

It is worthwhile to pay attention to this, for in general a person thinks that spirituality is something detached from life, that it is above this world. He forgets that the spiritual Kli within which the Creator is discovered is his link with the friends. If the link between us will be appropriate for the discovery of the Creator, then He will be revealed, and if it is not appropriate, then the Creator will not be revealed. Period!
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/24/14

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Absolute Zero

Dr. Michael LaitmanBaal HaSulam, Shamati, #19, “Why the Creator Hates the Bodies, in the Work”: The highest degree, the farther a thing is from the clothing, the higher it is. One has to feel in the most abstract thing called “absolute zero,” since man’s hand does not reach there.  

It is a place that is totally disconnected from our desire. It is an abstract attribute which one cannot benefit from: absolute zero. Our senses, desires, and thoughts do not perceive this place and don’t operate there. One can exist in this place only in faith above reason since the desire to receive does not operate there but only the desire to bestow.

This means that the will to receive can only cling in a place where there is a presence of Light. Before one purifies his vessels, so as to not blemish the Light, it is impossible for the Light to expand in his Kelim (Vessels). Only when one is on the path of bestowal, meaning in a place where the will to receive is not present, whether in mind or in heart, there the Light can come in utter completeness. Then the Light comes to him in a sensation that he can feel the sublimity of the Upper Light…

It follows that the importance of the work is precisely when one comes to a state of absolute zero, meaning when one sees that he annuls his whole existence and being, for then the will to receive has no power; only then does one enter the Kedusha.

A person has to divide himself into two parts: One part is his desire to receive and the other part which he wants to attain is the desire to bestow. He has to lower himself to the level of absolute zero, which means to correct the desire to receive so that he doesn’t use it at all.

It is impossible to hide from it because it won’t leave me alone, but everything depends on my priorities regarding receiving and bestowing, and whether the society, the teacher, the Creator, the study, and the importance of the spiritual goal are above everything else.

We should see this as the most important so that everything else becomes an absolute zero, which means that my ordinary desire to receive will cease to function. Only concerns about the basic necessities will remain, and I would also love to be free from this as well, but it has nothing to do with the desire to receive. Then I raise the importance of bestowal above this absolute zero, and the upper Light can dress in me. I cannot perform these corrections by myself of course, but I can want to. I don’t even have the power to want that and have to be incorporated in the group for this. The group does not provide me with the power to do it but the Light that Reforms does, and this Light operates only if the group tries to connect. This effort is actually our freewill, and we have to ask the Light for it so that it will complete the work for us.

Although we yearn to become absolute zeros, our desire doesn’t disappear. On the contrary, it constantly grows, trying to overcome a person. We have to overcome it with the help of the environment. Thus we advance by tilting to the left and to the right, until we reach the first revelation. Then this work continues, but it becomes clearer and more irrevocable.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/22/14

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Doors Close, Doors Open

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe Book of Zohar, VaYikahel [And Moses Assembled], Item 131: Then the twelve-letter name acted, lowering Malchut once more from the place of Bina de Malchut de Assiya to her place at the Sium of her ten Sefirot, and Bina and TM rising to their degree as in the beginning, above the firmament of Malchut.

And since Elijah was clinging to that Avir—Bina and TM that rose—it follows that he raised Elijah with him, above the firmament of Malchut, because of the equivalence.”

When we swallow, circular muscles push food further into the stomach. Straight line vessels act similarly: They create a consistent chain in accordance with the principle of cause and effect: pressure – relaxation, pressure – relaxation. The same mechanism is used in technology, for example, there are pumps that work this way.

Let’s say, I enter some place and the door behind me closes (A). How can I proceed further ahead? When the door behind me closes, there appears a new door right in front of me (B). Until then I hadn’t noticed it, but all of a sudden I see a new doorway. Again the door opens and I enter the next place where I see the third door, and so on.

This is a rigid order that works both in materiality and spirituality. The doors that open and close are “the firmaments.” While going through spiritual steps, Malchut continuously rises to Bina and then lowers from there. AHP also falls and rises over and over again. When it falls, it “picks us up” and raises us to a higher level where we associate it with Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE).

In AHP, we only nullify ourselves, whereas in GE, we turn into Hafetz Hesed of the current step that we occupy. It’s not just a self-nullification, but a small “childlike” state. Then, we feel the AHP of the Upper and self-nullify in front of him. Then he takes us up and the cycle repeats. This is how we gradually grow.

It goes without saying that our ascent during this process is accompanied by qualitative changes. We go through conception (Ibur), breastfeeding (Yenika), and adulthood (Mochin) each of which also is divided into three corresponding phases.

On this path, we go through awakening both from Above and below and through some other steps. Similarly, in this world we live in accordance with the calendar that does not depend on us. We adjust our lives according to days, weeks, months, years as if we are urged from “Above” to act so.

In the same way, in spirituality we sometimes should “fall into slumber” or act in a more reserved and passive way. Then we go back to a “day-time” regimen again. To make it short, there are more changes there than in this life including possibilities for personal initiative because the “awakening from below” depends upon us.

In general, all our work is becoming similar to the Upper. How can we test ourselves? We can only do this through our ability to attach lower vessels to us. That’s why it’s said “I dwell among my people.” Revelation of the Creator is possible only among “the people,” through others, through their broken desires, when we accept them as our own.

As a result, they become dearer to us than our own desires since they belong to deeper layers, and when as a result of our efforts they cling to us, we see that their structure and spiritual Partzuf are far more important than the ones that we had previously. Their vessels seem to be external to us since they were tossed far aside from us at the time of shattering. The ones that were the closest to us previously now seem to be the farthest from us.
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From the 2nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/3/14, The Zohar

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A Life Giving Sprout From A Rotted Grain

Dr. Michael LaitmanThe first Rabash article about the group starts with the words: “We have gathered here to establish a society…” since without it a man cannot reach the goal. Only through it can one implement oneself and only due to it one grows.

One’s spiritual growth has nothing in common with material development when one is nurtured by a group and thus develops. Spiritual development takes place within the group to the extent of the connection and unity among the friends, to the degree of my disappearance in the group, my dissolving in it.

Once a person understands that this is one’s spiritual growth and focuses solely on this, one can consider he is on the right track.

Before that, one represents “an unplanted seed”: it is stored somewhere, but nothing can grow out of it, and nobody knows if anything at all will ever grow out of it. This is why it is a way by which we can evaluate a person who belongs to our organization, who comes to us, studies in the Kabbalah Education Center, the Kabbalah Academy or takes any other Kabbalah course.

One can stay with us for a long time, but only when one starts regarding oneself not only as a part of the group, but as a seed that has to be planted into the group as it would be planted in the ground or it won’t ever grow—when one starts sensing and evaluating oneself this way, one’s spiritual preparation begins.

Seriousness and effectiveness of our preparation depend on the ability of the group to absorb new people and on the degree of the group’s ability to attract people and have them literally dissolve in it and feel that it is the place where each one can fit physically, morally, materially and spiritually.

We have to position ourselves in the group as a seed that practically disappears when growing and turns into “nothing and nobody.” We should consider ourselves to be a material that originates a qualitatively new entity: the group. This is what our spiritual growth is about.

We have to measure and evaluate ourselves relative to our spiritual growth with regard to our absorption into the group. Therefore, our rises and downfalls, all sorts of changes in our moods, sensations, understandings, and so on and so forth have to be sensed not individually but collectively.

It doesn’t matter how much one knows, whether one is able to sense spirituality, what one understands or realizes, or how deeply one knows the study material. Those are not the units of measurement, but false ideas of what spiritual growth is, because spiritual growth is measured solely by a quality and to the extent of one’s ability to unite with others.

That’s why the first thing that we have to reach is a zero level, when we become as a drop of semen or a seed that is planted in the ground and that becomes nothing.

In other words, all our egoism, our whole lives, everything that happened before, should not be taken into consideration at all. Naturally, we have to take care of our material life. At the material plane we have to continue being who we used to be previously, but the main thing for us is to turn into a drop of semen that initiates the spiritual life, the development of the fetus. That’s how we should visualize ourselves.

Only when one senses that one has almost achieved this state, continues aspiring to it, and evaluates oneself only through this prism, when this state becomes one’s goal, one’s dream, when anything one does and exerts at is aimed at achieving this result, only then one gets on the right track. The rest of one’s alleged achievements and attainments are not important to one anymore. This basic re-loading and re-evaluation of oneself is the change that is far more important than anything else. This kind of re-evaluation places a person in the very beginning of the spiritual ladder.

Then, when one turns into a zero, i.e., when the first restriction (Tzimtzum Aleph) takes place, one draws a line, and from this moment on, one’s appreciation of the group and one’s environment continues increasing. One clarifies whether one is just positioned inside the group or one represents the group’s active part that fully contributes oneself to it and is able to enter one’s friends and the entire group as an active element not out of one’s past, but out of one’s present moment, when one absorbs the desires, hopes, and goals of the entire group as one’s own, when one works for others as a mother for her children, serves them and makes everything one can for their further advancement.
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From the St Petersburg Convention 7/12/13 Lesson 4

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The Ideal Woman At A Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanQuestion: How should a woman ideally carry out her role at the three upcoming conventions?

Answer: The ideal woman includes all of the women of our world group within her. All of the women are connected together; they nullify their ego, their desire to gossip, to criticize, and their mutual disdain.

And it is not that they have forgiven each other’s shortcomings; rather, they truly feel that we are becoming one body. Our intellect and emotions detach us and bring us out of this common collective body by giving each one the illusion that she exists separately from the others.

We come to the convention in order to discover the truth, to see with the undistorted view that the whole world is one system. There is only matter that was created by the Creator “from nothing” in which the power of “something from something” dominates. Only love and connection dwell in the world. And that it seems to us otherwise is only because we are not like this ourselves. If I change myself in order to connect with others, then I will directly feel the upper world, here and now. Nothing else is needed other than changing our perception.

The ideal woman of Bnei Baruch feels this higher system, is included within it, and looks at the world with corrected eyes. I dream to see such women.

Question: How do we do the maximum? How do we focus on the inner work in order to attain this ideal image most rapidly?

Answer: We start from here, that all of the particular problems that exist in a group begin to be perceived and corrected as a common problem in a family. And we are even more than a family, we are one body. Even a hundred years ago Baal HaSulam wrote that the world of today is one family, one system. But we didn’t see this until now. We hope that now our Bnei Baruch group will ultimately become one united woman and one united man. And then these two halves can connect with an immense merger in which the Creator is discovered. We are already very close to this condition; so come, let’s hasten our advancement towards this.

I expect to see everyone as great as a result of the convention. And the women will play an even more important role here than the men. We know that women quietly determine the whole order of our lives. Therefore, I very much hope that the women will help us to rise over the course of the next two weeks in a meaningful way. After the convention we will already meet on the next level. I wish all of us success!
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From Kab TV’s Preparation to the Convention 1/24/14

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Everyone Is Traveling To The Convention

Dr. Michael LaitmanI am filled with anxiety about our convention in February. We are given work from above, an opportunity, responsibility for the souls, as if they are put into our hands in order to take care of them. This is a dear and great responsibility.

The Creator wants to be discovered and places before you conditions so that you must relate to this vessel as you would relate to the Creator. For precisely the right integration between all parts of the vessel, all parts of the Divinity, constructs the form of the Creator.

All of these desires that arrive from all ends of the world are the base; they are the area in which He is revealed. They invest so much, they are with us all the time. Many groups simply lock up their centers and come to the convention in full force.

And this imposes upon us a great responsibility. This is not talking about the organizational part, but rather, how we embrace and absorb them immediately and are absorbed within them. We are not hosting them; rather, we include them among us without any difference, in a completely new general condition that doesn’t exist in us or in them at the moment.

They are making supreme efforts, arriving from the most distant places, loaded with an unprecedented intensity, and we must reach a new state for connection, for the yearning for mutual bestowal within which the Bestower will be revealed.

Question: If we succeed in melting into one another and becoming integrated within an immense common desire, will this create a world vessel on a new level? How will we not waste the opportunity? This is the realization of everything that we have been waiting a lifetime for.

Answer: We must awaken one another, be responsible for each other. Each one is now determining his fate.

Question: It is up to us to acquire the deficiency of the friends. How do I pay for this?

Answer: By renunciation of the ego. There is no other price. It is as if we peel the shell from the heart in order to adhere to the friends until we feel their desire as our desire. We connect the desires that yearn for the discovery of the Creator. We connect and expect the arrival of the Light that Reforms, the power that will connect us and be revealed in us as the power of bestowal. And then we will flow within the characteristic of bestowal. From now on, all of our deeds are derived only from this feeling; We feel that we are in a sea of bestowal. It envelops us in warmth from all directions and obligates us with subtlety to carry out our obligations. I nullify myself and then this characteristic of bestowal works through me.

But this is only mutual integration. And after that it is up to me to grow like an embryo, to hold the characteristic of bestowal within my ego. It is like a boat set into the sea; I want to increase the activity of the general bestowal that is revealed in me on the first level, the initial stage of the Light of Nefesh de Nefesh”. Through my willing combination with this characteristic, I strengthen the action, they say 620 times in 125 spiritual levels. And all of this is the result of my participation, of my efforts in a sea of bestowal in which I discover myself like an embryo in the water’s of its mother’s womb.

In the beginning I give myself up over the growing desire to receive, nullifying it in order to dwell within the characteristic of bestowal, identifying with it. And this is active work, active nullification of myself, and is realized over an opposing ego. The “flesh” that is added to the embryo awakens opposition and it is as if it builds from itself a negative image of itself.

Question: So how do we attain all of this? How do we acquire the deficiency of the friends?

Answer: This is through faith above reason. I want the characteristic of bestowal to dominate in me above all of my intellect and feeling. I already understand that I am not the master of my own house. In every moment of my life something dominates me that is revealed against my will. But there is also free choice. I choose the dominance of the characteristic of bestowal. In the face of all the desires that are revealed in me and arouse rejection, indifference, and additional negative things in me, I want bestowal to dominate in me.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/19/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Poison That Heals

Dr. Michael LaitmanThere is nothing besides the Torah and prayer, that is, the discovery of the shortcomings that I must clarify, sort through. I must connect with the friends in order to create the right deficiency that is imperative for the correction that will take place through our closeness, our integration with each other, the connection and adhesion of all the shattered parts.

As a result, we reach the inability to connect, and we clarify that there exists some kind of obstacle among us that disturbs us. It could be that the Creator won’t allow us to do this or it is our egoistic nature itself, which was also created by the Creator.

In other words, we discover disturbances on the way towards connection, correction, and restoration of the whole vessel, the one collective soul in which we can discover the Creator as a single power, and in this manner we realize the goal of creation, this being our personal goal as well.

If we work on all of this, then we reach our true shortcoming: our inability to attain connection. And about this it is said: “The One who makes peace on high will make peace for us,” will complete our unification, and will connect us. A prayer like this will be accepted immediately and we will merit an answer to the prayer.

The answer to the prayer arrives in the form of the Light that Reforms that connects us. This Light is called Torah. Therefore it is said, “I created the evil inclination,” the desire that separates us and doesn’t allow us to connect. At the moment that we want to connect, to be included with each other, to melt into one another, we discover the evil inclination that is awakened in us. And before that it doesn’t show itself.

It is concealed inside like a snake and we don’t feel it. But the moment that we begin to approach each other with the intention to connect, then the snake shows its head and doesn’t allow it. It secretes its poison, and then we understand, feel, and discover what that “evil inclination” is.

But against this evil inclination, the Light that Reform comes and transforms it into the good inclination. That is, without this ego we would not succeed in reaching connection; it is specifically the evil inclination that becomes the good inclination. It is like snake venom, which on the one hand is poisonous but on the other hand is used as a remedy. Every remedy is a poison, but a poison taken in a very small dose that can be used to treat the disease.

Poison is at the foundation of every remedy, but not every poison is a remedy. If we match the poison of the snake to the poison within us, then the Light of correction is revealed within. That is how we reach the Torah; that is, we already have Torah (the Light that Reforms) and prayer.
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From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 1/21/14, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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