Question: What does it mean not to place a stumbling block before a blind person?

Answer: It means that you shouldn’t tell a student what he cannot yet overcome.

It isn’t about the masses, but about students, although the general public also slowly catching up.

The difference is that individuals who have a point in the heart advance along the straight path by revealing this point individually, while the public follow their own path and discover the point in the heart among them. So our path is independent of the others and we only create the influence of a small environment around us. The public, however, advance towards the Creator (the attribute of love and bestowal) by the connection between them.

Question: Is there any illumination coming out of this point in the heart?

Answer: It depends on the connection. In case of the general population, the point in the heart is created in the center of the circle, while in our case it is in each one of us, and these points connect in the center of our circle. So in our case the movement is individual, in a group, while for them it is only in a mass, in a group and not personal. Therefore, we have to educate and serve them.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/24/13

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Spirituality is not attained by work in the mind, as it says: “wisdom among the nations – believe, Torah among the nations – don’t believe.” This means that the Light that Reforms is not among them. Therefore they are called the nations of the world and not Israel yet. This is what the whole debate is about: Who attains the Creator and who doesn’t? What is attainment?

To the extent that we acquire vessels of bestowal and sense in them, we attain the Creator, which means the phenomena that take place in our vessels of bestowal. It is impossible to attain anything else, except for a feeling in our vessels. The early simple desire to receive expands and acquires a new order. Before, it was scattered to many contradictory pieces that felt themselves as Israel and the nations of the world, relatives and distant strangers.

All this belonged to my desire to receive, but it seemed like a whole world that is around me in different forms. My role is to connect all this into one, to collect all the pieces and attach them to me by treating them with love. I have to understand that it was all given to me in order to correct myself, my point in the heart, by which I acquire the right intention towards all my enemies, those who hate me and foreigners, as I begin to perceive them as parts of my soul.

It is inside me that I have to find the right attitude towards them and then to correct them. If I perform such a correction in my inner attitude, I see that everything works out. All the many enemies and my problems are only a replica of my inner state. It is my attitude by which I divide all of reality into the land of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Babylon, and different distant countries and nations, which means that they are all the levels of my desire: the still, vegetative, and animate nature, and the speaking.

Once there was one desire, the world of Ein Sof (Infinity), and now it is divided into many parts, which feel that they are distant from one another and hate one another. All this can be connected into one form, and this is the whole correction of man and the world as one whole.

All this can be realized only if I demand correction. The whole difference is whether I philosophize about it using my mind or in contrast to what I see and the repulsion that I feel by all these parts, in faith above reason, as parts of my soul, although they seem so distant and even hated. So I begin to get closer to spirituality, working above my desire in the group and thus awakening it more and more.
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From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/13, The Book of Zohar — Introduction

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The Torah, “Exodus,” 23:1: “You shall not accept a false report; do not place your hand with a wicked person to be a false witness.”

This law of the Torah, which is about a person’s struggle with his internal evil, is echoed in the spirit of the book of Psalms.

“You shall not accept a false report; do not place your hand with a wicked person” means that you should not support the ego that lives inside you and is your nature. Thus I distinguish between my real self and my evil, egoistic self.

My real self is based on their oppositeness, on the feeling of the Creator, which I begin to identify with the Creator, while my egoistic self constantly grows. The difference between them grows accordingly: I can determine my negative attributes towards the spiritual object (the Creator) more clearly, and thus my request becomes stronger and more refined.

“To be a false witness” means not to bow to my ego’s opinion, since when it grows it presents such logical arguments to a person that it is simply impossible to refute them by our simple mind.

In such a case the connection between people becomes very meaningful, the connection between a person and the right environment, since otherwise he draws away from the spiritual work.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/24/13

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When a person is not tightly connected to the right environment he begins to draw away from the spiritual work, since the left line is so tempting!

These are not only physical temptations that temporarily distract you, that you can work out and return to the spiritual work, but also are temptations such as control, wealth, respect, praise, and knowledge.

You can probably imagine that if people who study the wisdom of Kabbalah were allowed to receive great wealth, it is doubtful that anyone could resist this temptation. If they were given palaces, yachts, and an army of servants, it would precede any other desire they may have. This is how a person is simply brainwashed. He turns into an animal in a golden cage.

He may also be given unlimited control. Suppose someone tells you: “We need you to be the president of the world. We want one person to manage everything. Anything that you desire will immediately be carried out in the world, through the whole human hierarchy.” At the same time it isn’t about the correction of the world and of people, but about ordinary technological evolution.

What can stop a person? Nothing.

You may also be tested not by wealth or domination but by fame: You are told that you are awarded the Noble Peace prize or that you are invited to speak before a prestigious forum. You are surrounded by flatterers who praise you and compliment you. Everyone looks up to you and is impressed by you! The Creator can present this kind of a show before you.

And the most important is knowing that society sees you as the wisest, smartest, most talented person of all. Knowledge is not wealth, nor power and glory. Ordinary human knowledge is to cover the whole universe; everyone looks at you as the only one who understands the secrets of the universe. Here the worship is much more significant since it is actually between the ego and the next level.

It is very hard to avoid temptations such as domination, wealth, fame, and knowledge along our spiritual path; in fact, it is impossible. We have to guard and protect students who are attracted to this. Therefore, in all the religions and in many societies, the son is usually next to his father so that he can pass down to him his life’s occupation. The son will never object and will always support and keep his father’s line since he wants to preserve his name and the character.

Educating students so they will be as loyal to you as your sons is very complex. In order to do that, one must tyrannize them, so that they will not break away from you, so that they will receive as many blows as possible during the years they are with you, and begin to realize why they get closer or draw away: for respect, for knowledge, or for wealth? So they will at least begin to feel these things.

I feel that students divert from the right path according to their internal distance from me, and according to the contempt they feel towards themselves. In that case I have to show them that it isn’t they who draw away from me but that it is I who draw away from them. If a student develops this correctly, he will understand that it isn’t actually drawing away but getting closer to me and then he will overcome everything. If he doesn’t, then nothing will happen.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 6/24/13

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Our spiritual work according to the method that we receive from studying Kabbalah is similar to a medical vaccination against a disease, when a healthy body is “given” a little bit of disease: The body produces antibodies and can resist the disease.

Similarly, our desire is vaccinated against egoism: We reveal its evil in advance before its full manifestation. This is done through the group work, by drawing the upper correcting Light in which we gradually discover our egoistic properties as evil. And a person does not go by the path of suffering from egoism to health, the property of bestowal and love of other; but restricting his egoism in advance, working against it in the group and studying, under the influence of OM, he goes towards the goal, similarity with the Creator, i.e., the revelation of the Creator within himself, by a short path of correction Achishena, experiencing the disease in its small manifestation within himself, voluntarily.

Humanity needs to recognize its natural egoism as a disease. Nature shows its defect on us ourselves. Long suffering is required to identify the disease and how to cure it.

Kabbalah offers a short and kind path to correction instead of this long and unkind path. But even in advance, still at the early stage of its development, we need to recognize it as evil, which we need to get rid of, to realize the need to be vaccinated, i.e., to go through it in a small dose and never get sick again, to become healthy, build a new life.

The essence of dissemination is to gradually explain to people what the cause of their troubles is, our egoistic nature, and how to heal it by means of the method of a simple “vaccination.”
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We need to construct our work according to a precise arrangement.

1. I cannot turn to the whole, to the general public, before I am included with the group (group of ten).

2. Only after I am included in it, do I receive the Surrounding Light (Ohr Makif).

3. After that I influence the whole, people, which we call “education.”

4. We unite with them.

5. I bring the whole of them to the group, which is called bringing the “Nations of the World” to “Israel,” and all merit discovery of the Creator.

From the group I transfer to the whole (←) and from the whole back to the group (→), and by means of the Surrounding Light we receive Inner Light (Ohr Pnimi). Because now we have a Kli, a desire to receive, together with the intention.

I am simply found in the middle, implementing the action. I work in a group with Galgalta ve Eynaim (GE), and with the public, which is the AHP, and I am left in the middle of the Upper Third (1/3) of Tifferet where there is free choice.

Therefore, if I am not included in a group, I have nowhere to begin. Each one of my steps must begin from this inclusion and this is the most important action and the foundation of all actions. If there is inclusion, then it is possible to continue to act; if there is no inclusion, then it is impossible to continue. For after this I act not with my own powers, but specifically through the power of the mutual inclusion that I received from the group, thanks to submission. My individual power is egoistic and only through nullification of my ego, through inclusion among the friends (1), can I receive from them the power of bestowal with whose help I turn to the general public (2).

And then I work with it also according to how I did this with the group of ten. My inclusion within the society is like inclusion with my baby to whom I want to give everything good. I don’t condescend; rather, I bow my head before the public with love.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/13, Talk About the Groups of Ten

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Question: If the group of ten is not sufficiently connected, how is it possible to add more connection to it?

Answer: There will be more connection in a group of ten if I use it in order to nullify myself.

In general I need to use the entire world for this. For the world was created for me: the friends, the group of ten, all of humanity, all that is happening, the entire picture that is comprehended in my consciousness, which is divided into still, vegetative, animate, and human. All of my comprehension of reality is designed for me so that I will transform my comprehension of reality into one force, into the Creator, into there is none else besides Him.

Now all of my comprehension of reality is divided in my eyes into four phases of still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, and into billions of parts, only because my desire to receive was shattered. Specifically, this shattering disintegrated the world into separate parts and thereby conceals the single force. The most useful means that makes it possible for me to comprehend this force is the group.

The group should unite and make certain steps to provide everyone the opportunity to feel such a unity, what connection is. The more that people connect, we rise from level to level. Each one of the levels we first comprehend is a scattered, fragmented, broken form, and after this we bring it to the concept of a single whole.

That is how I finish the current level and can rise to the next level in which I again receive additional ego, additional desire to receive. And then I again see a confused picture of the world, which is chaotic and shattered from one end of the world to the other and again; I need to collect and gather its parts, attributing them to one force according to the principles of “Israel, Torah, and the Creator are one,” “There is none else besides Him,” “The Good who does good.”

And this is how we always advance, step after step. And in order to make this entire process easier on myself, I am found in a small group, in a group of ten. For in our group there are several hundred people and it is impossible to be connected in it with everyone; it is as if you want to be connected to the whole world. The person doesn’t comprehend more than ten real “images”; that is how we are constructed. It is no accident that in several primitive languages there is a count to ten and after that comes the comprehensive definition of “many.”

But essentially this is not primitive, but rather the result of our understanding. In fact, all that is more than ten, even if it is fifteen and even if it is a million, it makes no difference to me, because this is beyond the limits of my comprehension. For example, if we pour into a cup more than it can contain, it doesn’t matter how much more. Even if we spill a few drops or a few cubic meters, it is the same thing.

Therefore we divide our society into group of ten in which it will be easy for a person to be included in its environment, to devote himself to the friends, to prepare himself for a state where he will be devoted to the entire world, which is to say, to be devoted to the higher power, to the Creator. About this it is said, “I sit among my people”; that is how we prepare our Kelim; this is how it is expressed from their side.

But this doesn’t say at all that I intend to be closed within my group of ten, to be isolated within it and to ignore the rest. An approach like this is already  Klipa – a shell. For if I was a simple egoist before, now I want to derive benefit with my desire to receive from connection with the others, from my devotion to them. Specifically in this way do the forces “suck” juices from bestowal. In this case it is said, “The dispersion of the wicked, this is good for them and good for the world. It is good for them so that they will not be in Klipa and it is good for the world because they will not come to the whole world with their method.”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/20/13, Talk About the Groups of Ten

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Creation is basically a desire to receive, a created being, “something from nothing,” which means zero, nothing, absolutely naught. The only case an action can be attributed to the desire to receive is if the desire operates thanks to the force of the Light, the force of bestowal that it receives from the Creator.

Until then it remains “from nothing,” which means that nothing comes from it. But if it receives power from the Light and operates thanks to this power it becomes “something.” Therefore, it is called “something from nothing.” But it’s only this kind of work that turns the desire into “something” and without which it is “nothing.”

It’s a concept. Not only doesn’t the desire exist, but there is nothing we can speak about since it cannot respond or act in any way on its own. Something can be conveyed through it, but in itself it is “nothing.”

So “something from nothing” is “something” in the “nothing.” If something of the Creator is revealed in the matter of the zero desire, then it’s already “something from nothing.” From this point a human being can already develop. Its origin from “nothing” is the most important addition, since in itself, out of its personal choice, with the help of the power it received from the Creator, from the spark of the point in the heart, it received something from the mind and the heart and has turned the “nothing” into “something.”

So how does the created being, which is “nothing,” receive the point of “something” from the Creator? We don’t know that. Later when we ascend the spiritual levels, we attain it.

There are people who feel the beginning of “something” in their “nothing” and want to fulfill this spark. It’s fulfilled through the connection with the other sparks, which is possible only by overcoming the ego that separates them. The matter of the egoistic desire to enjoy is between them, meaning rejection, and by overcoming it, they connect into one big spark that has to reach a certain size in order to resemble the Light, resemble the “something.”

This means that there is also “something” in us and that it’s in exile, in the captivity of the power of the shells (Klipot). Our freewill, the action that can free the spark to work, is helping one another’s desire to rise above the envy, above the gap between us. It doesn’t happen by itself, but by studying, by a guide and by the work in the group. We don’t understand the mechanism of the events, but we go through them and this already creates a slight illumination. It stems from the corporeal actions, since we have no intentions yet, but we still act together in different areas, and this connection draws the Surrounding Light on the level of Nefesh.

So we begin to fulfill our spark, the point in the heart, by simple mechanical work. Later, however, when we end this work, we begin a more clarified type of work since we already perform a certain role with regard to the group, are incorporated in the connection more consciously, and understand why and for what reason.

Now I have to make a decision as to how to continue, what steps to take and which to avoid. First I simply merged and now there are serious actions that I have to account for: How and for what purpose do I connect with the friends? Why should I overcome my ego? What should I pay for the connection and what should I do with the connection?

If I acquire the power of the connection, the force of bestowal, I don’t use it for my own benefit. I connect with the group in order to melt into them to receive the force of bestowal from the friends above my annulment, and now I am like an ant, carrying this force for others. Later I return to the group and take a new load from the friends, a new load of bestowal, and once more pass it on to others.

This means being a link, and this is where my free will is. This is the only thing I can choose; I remain an ant and don’t demand anything else. Just give me the power to carry out this work, to annul myself before the group and before the external public.

Why do I do that? I do it because I bring the Creator contentment this way, because I bring the message and the method of getting close to Him to the group and to people on the outside. I take their deficiencies, am incorporated in the group, and with it I raise a “prayer of many,” for the people on the outside.

There is nothing we can pray for in the group since we are in a state of Hafetz Hesed. The Creator wants them and not us. He has inserted a spark into us and now we can pray in a group so that He will give us the power to work with the wider public in order to bring Him contentment.

I return to the group over and over again with the external desires, raise a prayer, receive the force of bestowal, and pass it on to the public. This is my work, and while I perform it, I clarify the vessels or raise them above the Parsa, form the worlds of BYA to the world of Atzilut. Thus time and time again, I fulfill my free will with regard to every new discernment.

So at the unity evening in Gaash we feel the need for the connection between us; we build up the intention to have the power to go out to the wider public in order to take care of them and to serve them. By that we bring them a little of what brings the Creator contentment. In order to do that we need the power and this is why we connect.
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From the Preparation of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/13

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The practical realization of the wisdom of Kabbalah, which is to say the revelation of the Creator to the creatures in this world, begins from our generation and on. Now we together with all of humanity discover a Kli, a desire, for the completion of correction thanks to the global crisis and our dissemination work in Israel and in the entire world. Even if we receive the smallest shortcomings from people, thanks to the connection between their shortcomings and our shortcomings, we can elevate all this together to the spiritual world.

People want material, simple things, but their desires are arranged such that it is impossible to correct them without the help of the Light that Reforms. This is the form of the present crisis; every deficiency, regardless of its kind,  is revealed to be shattered, egoistic, and without solution on the plane of this world.

It requires Light for its correction because it is derived from the mutual inclusion between everyone and requires the right connections in various directions among people and with the still, vegetative, animate nature. All this must be connected together and be mutually completed with each other, and only then will correction take place.

Therefore it is clear that the crisis cannot be corrected through human efforts. Rather, when we accept the deficiencies from people and elevate them, we carry out Divine work, serving as a conduit between the Creator and the creatures and become what is called a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” In this form for the first time in history we have the opportunity to build a complete collective Kli, a pinhole, a Kli for containing the Light, through taking the deficiencies from the AHP, connecting them with the desires to bestow of GE and in combination with prayer (MAN), raising them to the Light of Ein Sof (Ohr Ein Sof).

It is said that “all who sorrow with the public merit to the consolation of the public.” Which is to say, someone who takes the sorrow and the needs of the public and elevates them, he is the first to merit to the Light that Reforms, which passes through him to those people for whom he is concerned.
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From the Preparation for the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/14/13

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Baal HaSulam Article, “A Handmaid That Is Heir to Her Mistress”: “Opposite them are illuminations that can only act instantaneously. Hence, when they appear here in their worldly branches and are given control, not only do they not correct, they ruin. Our sages call it “unripe,” as it is written concerning the Tree of Knowledge and Adam HaRishon, that they ate unripe fruit. This means that it is truly a dainty delight, destined to delight man, but in the future, not at present, as it is still growing and developing. This is why they compared it to an unripe fruit…”

The correction of the Kelim (vessels) is carried out according to particular stages and we don’t define them but our behavior in the states through which we pass.

The entire world was created for the good of the person who works, which is to say, who grows spiritually. In other words, if a person wants to attain spirituality, he accepts all stages of his life with thanks, blesses the bad and the good to the same degree, in that the bad is like the good.

Everything comes from the Creator and I only need to realize all of my states in the most useful way. If I act correctly, then the next state will seem easier to me, that is, closer to realization from my side and more understandable because I have prepared myself.

A question can be asked here: Is the next state truly revealed as easier or do I become wiser by following my right action today so that this next stage will seem easier in my eyes? Does the Creator present an easier challenge for me or has my preparation done its work? What exactly has changed?

The truth is that one depends on the other and we have no possibility of establishing the advantage of one of the factors in regard to the other. Indeed, no matter how much the person rises, in spite of it, all the evil inclination will always remain suspended above him. And as much as he hasn’t prepared himself, apparently it will be necessary to undergo greater corrections.

That is how we advance, and in truth in most circumstances not much intelligence is required of us. We only need to accept the action that appears before us as correct and combine with it the necessary intention.

We don’t have the ability to make an exact determination of what the reason is that this state or another happens at this moment. It is also linked to future development and many details that are found within the general system. And therefore, “simplicity” is the best approach here, the right relationship in regard to every action.

Therefore, every time this state or another appears before me, I must accept it as being the best for me. It comes from the Creator who is good and does good and there is none else besides Him, and in this state I must act so that specifically within it, as a result of my effort, I will discover the Creator as the good who does good and that there is none else besides Him.

If I begin to correct my relationship and through the present state change it to an opposite relationship and bestowal, then I discover “There is none else besides Him” and the “Good who does good.” As much as a state may at first be bad and harmful, in the end it is said to be expressed in a form in which the Creator can enter.

We must always remember that the beginning and the end can be opposite each other, as Baal HaSulam explains in his article, “Concealment and Disclosure of the Face of the Creator.”

Suppose that in my eyes today everyone is a thief and a criminal, everyone hates me and fights with me, everything is black and terrible, I live in a nightmare and only lose in everything in addition to my previous losses, errors, and all the opportunities that I missed in life. I simply eat myself up about His sending me a state like this. And as long as I have not corrected it, it will continue to devour me.

Everything is such that I will correct myself and will see “There is none else besides Him” and that He is “the Good who does good.” Consequently all the bad transforms to being most useful and the best so much so that the “angel of death,” the Pharaoh, the worst enemy, becomes a “holy angel,” the highest good.

Imagine the worst people and the most terrible states in your life. So if you have not yet discovered the opposite in them, this says that you have not yet succeeded in correcting the past and you have not at least transformed the unintentional transgressions to merits, not to mention the intentional transgressions.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/15/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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