Question: Is there a difference in the men’s and the women’s path in the wisdom of Kabbalah?

Answer: In our world there is a big difference between men and women in the way of thinking, in the approach to life, in the comprehension of reality, and in decision making. We are truly very different. The difference is not just in sexual characteristics. These are two worlds: the male half and the female half of nature. Indeed, in the still, vegetative, and animate nature there is a division into male and female parts, and the differences in the human are even greater.

But when we begin to search for the Creator, then on the physical level, the gender differences regarding our physical properties apply in a group and in connection within a group; whereas, in the spiritual world this is not so. Women who approach the Creator have the same opportunity as men, especially in our time.

I believe that the wisdom of Kabbalah is the only area of human activity where the woman is equal to the man. This is an interesting paradox. There are absolutely equal rights.

In no other physical involvement can you be equal to men: in some things you are better and in some things they are better. Give me the name of a famous painter, famous musician, famous conductor, or chef. Mention the name of at least one woman, there aren’t any!

In our world there is a clear distinction in certain male and female abilities because we are separated. And in the spiritual world, where all of us are going towards connection together, and our spiritual component is what is created as a result of the unification, then there is no difference, rather only wholeness. Therefore, in the spiritual world there is no male or female soul, female or male group. Everything is mixed into one complete unit.

We are gradually reaching this. This is not a simple way, for we are still expected to do a lot. But in the end of the matter, by discovering the Creator in our common unity, we will see that there is no difference between the male and female forces; all of our efforts become shared.

Now we are still in the preliminary stage of the development of our soul. And it is one for all. None of us has a soul of our own. This is that singular organ, singular Kli, in which the Creator is revealed, “Malchut of the world of Infinity, one singular desire!
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From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 3

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Question: Our groups in Israel are involved with dissemination. They require the help of all the friends throughout the world.

Answer: Our friends in Israel first and foremost require the help of the Creator. He will whip them, shake them to exhaustion, kick them from corner to corner, will do everything to shake out all the all the nonsense, all of the ego, all of the audacity that as if says, “We, we, we!,” so that in a state of total exhaustion they will cry out to Him, as it is said, (Exodus 2:23) “And the children of Israel sighed from the labor.”

Therefore we must hold everyone together and do everything possible. But simultaneously, don’t forget that the Creator does everything and we depend only upon Him; this is important! After all, in all our actions we want Him to bring them to the desired result. In any case, it is impossible to pursue any physical victories and achievements. The goal can be only one: more adherence with the Creator and greater dependence upon Him.

If we had already attained this, then we would have had no more need for anything! What takes place on the physical level has no significance! Everything would be okay. Only one thing depends upon us, to constantly demand of Him that He will not abandon us and will hold us in connection, in adherence with Him. So that He will give us the intention to do everything, to fulfill Him, just as He fulfills us, as in the metaphor of the guest and the host. This is everything.

I am very happy, I am just elated about what is happening now. What else do we need in order to be frightened and scared to death, in a state of complete internal and external shattering? If He were to add more, then it would be even better. Without this we will not exit the Egyptian exile (the ego).

Therefore it is not necessary to feel sorry for anyone. On the contrary, we should rejoice with them, and only strengthen them and yourselves with the thought that the Creator is doing everything so that by the way of suffering, by way of these complicated conditions, we will rise above them, and connect with Him. It is thanks to these conditions He creates, conditions for us so that we will think about Him, of course egoistically in the meantime, trembling and fearful for ourselves, but together with this, at least with some thought of if we will be able to attain from these states actions of bestowal towards Him.

All of our inner work must be completely directed towards connection with Him. Do everything necessary externally, and internally only be together, in adherence between us and with the Creator.
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From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 3

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Question: How should those who will come to the congress for the first time prepare for the meeting with the friends from the World Kli?

Answer: No preparation is necessary. We have friends all over the world. Even if you don’t speak their language, you won’t feel different from them because everyone is aimed at the Creator.

Every person who has such a spark for spirituality awakens to the same goal and you are together, feeling no difference. Don’t be afraid that something will be new to you. You will feel that all of them are close to you.

Question: If I am a beginner and don’t understand anything in this science but want to come to the congress, is it worth doing so? And if yes, how should I prepare for it?

Answer: First of all, if time allows, you should study the contents designed for preparation online. But regardless, you will pick it up “from the air” that you will be breathing…
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From the Introductory Lecture “Preparation for the Congress” 10/12/10

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #3: “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”: When we pray to the Creator and ask of Him to help us and to give us what we want, we relate to the discernment of Infinity (Ein Sof). There is the root of the creatures, which wants to impart them delight and pleasure, called “His desire to do good to His creations.”

We must go to Infinity, to absolute love. But why? It would appear that it could be enough to imagine the nearest spiritual state?

No.

First of all, because the nearest state is already Infinity. The adjacent, higher degree is called “Infinity” in relation to the previous one. Today, I cannot attain it, limit it, “bound” it in my vessels, desires; I can somehow imagine it in myself. It is higher than any of my fantasies, all impulses.

So, it is infinite for me, i.e., incomprehensible. It is beyond my perception; it operates at such frequencies, in such properties, which I am not able to discern at all. It does not fit in my current desires. I am deprived of the means of its perception. The most I can imagine is some imaginary similarity of the next degree.

And yet, if I do not seek Infinity, to the best of my understanding, according to the correct definitions, then I do not build the unity of Israel, the Torah, and the Creator. We need to remember that His desire to delight the creature is infinite, that He fully desires to bring us good, and thus I must give the same full response and find Him through the group.

Well, in the group, I begin to understand that I need to nullify myself completely, to absorb the friends’ desires, to give them myself, to dissolve among them so that there is no memory of me. I have to work with the desire of the group by all means to fulfill the desire of the Creator. I can express myself only in this way.

This is the preparation that will enable us to become a connecting channel between the created beings and the Creator.

However in the group, we seek not these two ends of connection, but one point—from oneself to the center of the group and the Creator, Who is hidden there, inside. Here, we do not adapt ourselves to the two different directions, this stage will come later. First, we organize a group, establish connection with the Creator, and then build communication, create a “modem” for switching between the Creator and created beings.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/13, Shamati #3 “The Matter of Spiritual Attainment”

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The problem is how quickly a person, having come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, is included in the real work. He could be there for a long time, listen to what is said, but not apply real effort, which is connection with others.

Perhaps, only after a long time, he finally begins to understand that the spiritual path is in connection in the group, and it is necessary to find the central point of this unity. After all, only there will he be worthy of contact with the Creator.

It will take a long time until he develops an idea about the concept of the Creator. After all, the Creator has no image, no form, not the slightest clue for us. The Creator is called the force of bestowal that is revealed in a person under certain conditions, which he has to reach by his own efforts. He needs to be suitable for the disclosure of this property. Only when it is manifested in a person can it be called the Creator, but not outside the person.

In essence, a person is impressed by the form which he himself will take in the future. He is drawn to the fact that it is revealed in him, that is, to him in the future. He must be very clear that nothing will change, except himself. He strives to his future form, addresses it with a prayer.

Therefore, it is said about this path, “I labored and found.” This does not mean that I remain the way I was and everything around me changes. The entire world, the entire reality is within a person, and only he changes. That is why, “I labored and found, believe.” It is impossible to come to this find without changing oneself. I “find” because I bring myself to the correct form due to the Light that Reforms and within myself reveal the common property of bestowal and love that is called the Creator.

It is impossible to achieve this without effort. And having applied efforts, I find because I make out of myself the basis on which the image of bestowal, the property of the Creator, can be discovered. This is the only way to advance. That is why efforts should be beyond human power; that is, I have to create a foundation, apply my efforts, but always wait for the Light that Reforms to change me, to prepare for the revelation of the property of bestowal and love. Then, it will be established in me and will begin to rule, changing myself in such a way that my entire mind and heart work in connection with my other parts that now seem to me foreign and separate from me.

That is, we need a proper definition of effort. That is why so much time passes from the moment a person comes to the group and begins to study until he begins to understand and feel that all the changes that must happen are in him, not on the outside. This change in approach, in perception of reality, in feeling that everything is inside him because the whole world is the imprint of his properties, and his spiritual vessel has to include in itself everything, that is, to be “integral.” Only then he will achieve his realization, when the entire creation is in him as his inseparable part. The entire still, vegetative, animate nature, and people are parts of his soul, and there is nothing else besides it.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/13

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Question: It says that we have to reach the “Gate of Tears.” How can we be sure that we are not deceiving ourselves?

Answer: We will not be able to deceive ourselves because we are shaken so strongly from above that we will have to come to the Creator with the right request for spiritual salvation. We simply have to try as much as we can to perform all the requirements, to hasten the process of our evolution, and we will certainly reach it. I promise you since I know from my own experience how this method works.

This is how we develop. The majority of the people who participate in our development are advancing forward, and I hope that it will soon be revealed in us.

Today, when we read the Torah and other Kabbalistic books, it becomes clearer that we are on the right track. You begin to feel and to understand what it says in those books. So don’t worry, sooner or later you will begin to cry.

Tears is a feeling of powerlessness, a state of smallness (this is called the “Gate of Tears”), when it isn’t in my power to do anything and I understand that only the Creator can perform everything in my place.

Question: But how can I be sure that I have really reached that and that I am not deceiving myself?

Answer: Don’t worry, you will be given the chance to understand this. Do everything that is up to you, and then suddenly new states will be revealed to you. These are the new Reshimot (spiritual genes). When they are revealed, a person begins to have new feelings. Just advance forward and you will see how everything is revealed by itself.
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From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 4

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Baal HaSulam, Shamati #26, “One’s Future Depends and is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”: It is written, “The Lord is high and the low will see,” that only the low can see the greatness. The letters Yakar (precious) are the letters Yakir (will know). It means that one knows the greatness of a thing to the extent that it is precious to one.

One is impressed according to the importance of the thing. The impression brings one to a sensation in the heart, and according to the measure of one’s recognition of the importance, to that extent joy is born in him.

Our basis is opposite from the Creator. There are two desires: a desire to receive and a desire to bestow, which are opposite to one another because one stems from something from something and the other stems from something from nothing. So the more humble a person is, the more he acknowledges the Creator’s greatness.

It is very easy to see what the desire to receive appreciates. We are ready to bow before an important person, to admire an important phenomenon, only if our ego feels that they are important. A person spends his whole life searching for the feeling of stability, confidence, support…

However, if something is external to the desire to receive, it isn’t felt as an important factor that can bring desired pleasure or as a threat to what one already has; if it is not in contact with the desire to receive, then I need to create the awareness of its importance, a new awareness. How do I do that?

The condition, “The Lord is high and the low will see,” tells us that we must change.

After all, at least we have a desire to receive. So when we work persistently in order to identify its lowliness, we will be able to identify the greatness of the force of love and bestowal to the same extent. We see that one stems from the other, according to the principle of “the advantage of the Light from the darkness.”

We can do that only in the relations between the friends. The relations with the external world are not suitable for that because there are other standards there. In the group a person can make efforts in order to annul himself in a simple way, as much as he can, even without the right intention.

Then he sees that he isn’t any better than the others. On the contrary, it turns out that he is even worse than them in his attributes. The Light that Reforms influences him through the group and although a person doesn’t understand, he sees that the friends are more successful, have greater strength in annulling themselves, and more force for participating in the lessons, in connection, and in adhesion for the goal. At the same time, he sees that he can also do it. This is where the feeling of importance stems from, since it turns out that the Creator relates to him personally.

Thus, time after time, only when he measures himself in relation to the friends, can a person understand that on the one hand he is low and on the other hand he is worthy of something that he doesn’t deserve at all. He sees that all the other people are detached from the upper force, while he was rewarded with a special attitude from Him. This evokes the development of the vessels in him. He becomes more responsible for what he has received and feels that he is already responsible for others. It’s because he didn’t receive it thanks to his efforts or his personal achievements. No, the Creator has invited him to perform this special work and from now on he is responsible for the correction of the world.

This is how everyone should see himself because the correction of the world depends on him. No one else can correct what he will correct.

So a person feels that he is low and at the same time he understands that he has received a very important mission. The Creator, of course, only expects a person to be able to fulfill the mission and He is ready to help him in any way possible. A person needs only to prepare a prayer so that the Creator will complete what he has started (“The Lord will complete it for me”).

Thus he advances. When a person looks at the past, he understands that the Creator has prepared the whole way for him. He cannot do anything by himself, or expect anything in advance, since he doesn’t know how to advance. On the contrary, everything was prepared for him in advance from above.

Then a person feels gratitude for being in a group, for the fact that he has support from above, for the guidance that he has received up until now. It’s on this basis that he can be sure that if he advances and each time recognizes the lowliness of his nature, then he will feel the “Lord’s greatness” instead and that will fill him. Instead of empty pride “he elevated his heart in the ways of the Creator,” and thus advances.

This is why Baal HaSulam says that “one’s future depends and is tied to gratitude for the past” for his nature, of the progress he has made and of his current state. He sees that he hasn’t chosen his nature, his fate, and that he hasn’t planned his path, and didn’t design himself the way he is. Everything actually comes from Above, and so if he continues to advance he will subdue his ego and from that point onwards there will be a wonderful path to the future spread before him.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/6/13, Shamati #26 “One’s Future Depends and Is Tied to Gratitude for the Past”

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Question: Did I understand it correctly that thought precedes emotion?

Answer: We measure thought by the magnitude of desire to which it applies. Desire is experienced in the heart, and a thought in the mind. What is primary, and what is secondary?

On our side, desire precedes thought since when a person starts wanting, he experiences a thought about how to obtain what he desires. If I have no desire for something, I will never think about it.

A person is constantly bombarded by the desires of this world and he is in turmoil because they pull him in different directions. How do we check the thought so we don’t get confused?

A thought can be discerned only when a person becomes part of the group and receives greater desire from it. The group gives him certain values, its own values, and if he is included in the group, he accepts its values and desires, and then the desire awakens to realize the new thought he received from the group. Desire always precedes thought.

Basically, we don’t possess a thought per se; we desire! If there are desires, there are thoughts; if not, there are no thoughts. The greater the desire is, the greater the thought.
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From Kab TV’s “Kabbalah for Beginners,” 10.21.10

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Baal HaSulam, “The Freedom”: If he were to leave the good environment he had chosen and fall into a harmful environment, in a city where there is no Torah, not only would his former concepts be compromised, but all the other forces hidden in his source, which he had not yet revealed in action, would remain concealed. This is because they would not be subject to the right environment that would be able to activate them.

And as we have clarified above, only in the matter of the choice of environment is man’s reign over himself measured, and for this he should receive either reward or punishment. And so our sages warned, “Make for yourself a Rav, and buy for yourself a friend.

A person has only a Reshimo (spiritual gene), a spiritual seed. But if we don’t plant it in the ground, if we don’t put it in the right environment, it will not develop. So Kabbalists first and foremost always took care of the environment, so that there would be at least two people, as it says, “the minority of many is two,” which means a student and his teacher. If there are several students then a group of friends is formed in which everyone works equally.

So first we should make sure that the environment is right: that everyone is equal, that everyone annuls himself before the others, and that there are no other external goals, only the goal of connection in order for the Creator to be revealed between us. The goal of the wisdom of Kabbalah, the purpose of creation, is the revelation of the Creator to the created beings, as the good and the benevolent, and His desire to delight the created beings.

So our advancement depends on how much we worry about the right and real environment. In a big environment such as ours that manages many different projects, there are several societies and the same people are in different relationships with one another.

We have to make sure that all the forms of external relations are only for external dissemination and external work. The main thing is that in our united inner group everyone is equal, everyone nullifies himself before the others, lowers his head before one goal, and increases its importance. There is nothing more important than this, our general unity and connection as one man in one heart.

This inner connection in a group has to be the most important thing for us. All the other connections, whether according to our professions, to fulfilling different goals, individual jobs or tasks, are arranged according to another principle, like a company. But this external attitude has nothing to do with the group. The group is something that is based on spiritual rules alone, and we need to constantly take care of it.

There is a some external life without which we cannot exist in our corporeal bodies, and there is a sublime goal that is eternal and whole for which our soul exists. We have to worry about the internal group so that it should be clean and accurately built according to the principles Baal HaSulam, Rabash, and all the other Kabbalists through the ages wrote about.

It is very important not to confuse the two. We can stop or change the external engagements in a moment, but the main thing is to keep the inner structure of the environment in which everyone is equal and united. This is how we advance.
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From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/10/13

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Question: It is so easy to unite at the conventions and it is so difficult in life. Why is it so much more difficult to unite a small group than a big group?

Answer: A big group holds itself, but in a small group there are too many opposite thoughts and desires that are sharply manifested.

Several people are always in some contradiction with each other: pride, jealousy, envy, etc. Indeed, all this is manifested naturally so that we can grow. But it is really very difficult for a small number of people.

Therefore, it is desirable that a group include at least ten people. It is good when it has many women; they stabilize a group, calm it down, soften it.

The most important thing is that men and women are equal in the group. You cannot push women to the back. If they are equal to you, then they can help maintain the group’s vitality on a good level.
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From the Bulgaria Convention “Dawn Of A New World” Day Two 11/2/13, Lesson 4

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