After a very powerful Men’s Convention, we feel great heaviness. But I think that it should be the opposite since we have ascended to a new level, have received new desires, and now have to go out and fight the narrow-minded world we have returned to. We have to fight so all the confusions and the hardening of the heart that we will feel will not wane our feeling of awe and elation. If we won’t let things calm us down, then all the locks will become openings and the gates will open up.

If you feel heavy and indifferent, it is a sign that you are working with your primordial raw egoism. It is the way it operates in its pure form, as a feeling of a dark extinguished desire that doesn’t care about anything. Now you have been given another ten pounds or ten ounces of desire, it doesn’t really matter how much, and you have fallen under this load.

You mustn’t refuse to receive the new desire since doing so is considered disrespect of the chance to advance, of the gift you are given from Above. But you should ask for two things: From the group, you should ask for support, empowerment, mutual guarantee, and mutual responsibility; and from the Creator, you should ask for correction, awakening, elation, and the Light.

You have to ask. There is nothing you can do other than that! If you stop asking, then you immediately fall into a state of unconsciousness. So you must constantly ask and pray internally, focusing on the group and on the Creator, holding on to this prayer. Otherwise, you fall into a deep sleep.
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From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/28/13, Talmud Eser Sefirot

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Question: Half a century ago in Pennsylvania, there was a small village in which people actually didn’t get sick. Doctors found this very intriguing and studied this phenomenon for twenty years. During this time everything changed: People started to get sick, the hospitals were filled, and then more doctors were needed.

The researchers reached a very interesting conclusion. It turned out that the small village was founded by Italian settlers who lived under the same roof and helped one another for four or five generations, respecting family ties. The moment they began to live separately, they started to get sick.

But now it’s the time of a generation that doesn’t know what it means to live in a big family. So the very notion of family has been so distorted, that, now, we can’t even imagine what it means to dine together with the whole family.

Answer: By the way, a compulsory family meal is one of our recommendations. It may not even be a family, but a community meal.

In the past, religions conducted extensive social work. A person used to come to the house of prayer, he heard a sermon, met other people, and talked to them.

All this was necessary even in the times when our ego was on a rather primitive level compared to today’s, when there was not the mutual rejection we feel today. Today, the mutual rejection is already an illness that has to be cured. Back then, the illness didn’t have to be cured but only needed preventive treatment. Now, however, we have to cure it. We have to reinstate the actions aimed at connection. They can’t be related to religion or to some other events anymore; it has to be serious workshops of integral education.
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From KabTV’s “The Medicine of the Future” 4/7/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Arvut (Mutual Guarantee)”: Only when they came out of Egypt and became a complete nation, only then was there a possibility to guarantee everyone’s needs without any care and concern. … as long as the individual is troubled with concerns for himself, he is unfit to even begin to keep the commandment, “Love thy friend as thyself.”

Thus, we begin to understand the meaning of the “Egyptian exile.” After all, the fulfillment of the conditions of mutual guarantee starts from the receiving of the Torah, according to the amount of the Light that Reforms that we draw. Until then, the children of Israel were not able to accept these conditions but were in the of system of establishing mutual guarantee.

On the whole, having come out of Babylon and set off on this path, we are constantly establishing the mutual guarantee relationship between us. First, our egoistic desire is still weak and we really feel that we are one family. But later, different conflicts begin; then, the hate builds up between us and we find ourselves in Egypt, that is, in different egoistic accounts. Here, “Pharaoh” becomes revealed to us and we gradually discover that there is no mutual guarantee between us.

Eventually, we reach the exact polar opposite of bestowal of the level of Bina. Instead of mutual guarantee, the force of bestowal, we acquire the force of receiving. This is the last phase before the exodus from Egypt. We discover all the evil among us in the group—and there is nothing else for us to do in Egypt.

Now, we need the Torah, the method of correction. Eventually, after the parting of the Red Sea, we receive it before the mountain of our hatred, Mt. Sinai (“Sinah” means “hatred” in Hebrew).
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/25/13, Writings of Baal HaSulam “The Mutual Guarantee”

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Question: Can we expect to cross the Machsom at the New Jersey convention May 10^th – 12^th?

Answer: If you know exactly what it means to cross the Machsom and you want to do it, then you will surely succeed. To cross the Machsom means to enter into the group and to be born into the spiritual world.

In order to be born, the point in the heart, the drop of spiritual semen, has to be moved upward and turned into a “white drop,” the embryo of your soul that belongs to the Light. Through it you will feel spirituality and in it you will feel self-annulment: first, in regard to the group; next, in regard to the attribute of bestowal; and then, in regard to the Creator. This will be the first feeling of the spiritual world: self-annulment.

Then, from this drop of spiritual semen, the embryo will begin to develop and more and more ego will be added to one’s self-annulment, which you will correct and turn into a matter for connection to the group. Then you will build your vessel, meaning the spiritual body, and will continue to move your entire ego to the other side, beyond the Machsom.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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A person is taught from Above to rise above his desire to receive. This world brings me different surprises, all kinds of states, induces me to do foolish things, influences me through my family and friends, and I must respond. According to my response, I am tested as to whether I keep the rule of “there is none else besides Him,” “the Good who does Good,” and whether I can confidently say that everything comes from the Creator and not retreat from this decision.

Other than that, I do not ask for any changes. I want everything to remain the way it is, I want to feel the worst states as the best states. I want to correct the actual state, not to escape it. I want to correct the desires in which I feel pain at the moment.

Otherwise I will not be able to justify Him. How else can I direct myself at bestowal, justify the evil, subdue myself, and bless the upper force if I have no contact with it? The shattering occurred in order to give me this option.

It is precisely for this reason that this whole world was given to me, like a tuning fork according to which musical instruments are tuned, so that I will attune myself to the Creator. Otherwise, without subduing myself and serving others, without the connection with the friends, I will not be able to do that. I have to feel that I receive all my thoughts and feelings through them, that I use the collective mind together with them.

I discover that the group is the vessel outside of my ego. My inability to connect with the friends shows me to what extent I cannot exit my ego. My fault is not my sophistication or my intelligence, but the hatred and the detachment, meaning the shattering. A person was given a group in order to give him a clear understanding, an example, a means to measure where he is with regard to the Creator.

You can feel hate, envy, pride, and ambition with regard to the group. You can annul yourself before it or not, you can shout at them or beat them, and they can do the same to you. But you cannot do that to the Creator since the Creator is the general, absolute force of nature. Only according to your equivalence to Him do you reveal the opportunity to be in contact with Him, to connect, since it is a perfect, fixed system.

So the preparation can only be by the influence of the environment, and it takes place on every level until the end of correction. Until the very end of correction we prepare for the revelation of the Creator in its fullest form.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/24/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: Quite often I don’t understand what the lesson is about: Whether it is about spirituality or about the corporeal life. How can we distinguish between the corporeal life and spirituality?

Answer: On the whole, what enters me through the five senses, through the “inlets” of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, is called “this world.”

If I develop an additional sense in me, meant for feeling others, then in my perception this sensation is divided into five parts: Ketter (K), Hochma (H), Bina (B), Zeir Anpin (ZA), and Malchut (M). I develop this sense from the point in the heart, by wanting to exit myself and to exist in the group together with the friends. It is among them that I discover the five senses that are outside the body, that make up my spiritual “body.”

This transition requires a period of preparation that is carried out by the Light. We cannot attain this by ourselves, but all our efforts summon the Light that Reforms, and eventually we acquire the new vessel of the soul.

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A group is an assembly of friends, a gathering of desires that reject themselves in order to unite. And only in this unity do they find the right means, the right attitude, necessary for the revelation of the Creator.

This is the law: The Light is at absolute rest, but to experience it, I need a suitable vessel that is being filled to the extent of my integrality. I have to form this vessel, which is the sum (Σ) of all the friends’ desires.
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From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How does a student who learns Kabbalah need to relate to a world in which there are so many problems: terror (like the recent bombs in Boston), the economic crisis, and ecological imbalance? What needs to be done?

Answer: The truth is that the world is in a much more difficult state than we think lacking understanding and knowledge. There is a period of reaction from nature, which is accumulating our negative influences, all the destruction that we throw at it. The main destruction exists on the human level in the relationships between us since by this we directly influence the most vulnerable place, the system itself.

There was a time when the damage we caused wasn’t that great. This was when we destroyed something in the crude, mechanical part of nature. After that we began to destroy its more subtle systems, say like the electronic or electrical mechanisms that activate the whole of nature. We have finally reached the program itself, where every small injury brings terrible, negative ramifications throughout the system.

This is the problem. Today we have developed to a state where we destroy nature exactly at that level, the level of the program of nature. We must adapt ourselves to nature on this level: We need to understand it, to discover, and be sensitive to the upper force and together with it, participate in the management of all the worlds. But we are not doing this yet. This delay accumulates and accumulates and will ultimately explode on us.

So we see so many problems in the world: terror, natural disasters, and bankruptcy of entire nations. The United States is absorbing hard blows: Just as its influence on the world is enormous so is the intensity with which it will feel the corruption of the world. To keep this from happening, our friends in the United States must make great efforts to work together with us.

In general this is something all of our groups in the world must do. The entire world is facing great blows which we can prevent. We specifically can help in this, nobody else can do anything, not even a president. Everything depends on the upper force and on our accommodation to it. The more that we correct ourselves and attain equality with it, the more we balance and heal nature.

In this way we can transform every negative influence to positive. After all, every negative influence that we discover in this world due to our lack of accommodation to nature will be regarded as the realization of evil that we can transform to good. So instead of a disaster that may come if we fail to mollify it by bringing the Light into it, we will feel the opposite: a great ascent.

The evil is still accumulating now as a result of all of our deeds. The time is tight, it is becoming critical. Everything depends on one question: Do we have enough time to attract the Light to all this negative charge accumulated by humanity, transforming it into positive or not? This is where the decision is made whether we tilt the world from the scale of guilt to the scale of justification?

Hundreds of thousands of tons have already accumulated on the side of accusation, which we can transfer to the side of merit, meaning to transform the sins into merits. The higher a person is, the greater is his ego. The main thing is to turn towards correction. I very much hope that thanks to conventions like these, we will accumulate sufficient power to attract the Light that Reforms so that instead of the accumulation of negative energy in the world, we will discover its opposite: positive energy.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/23/13, Writings of Rabash

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Rabash, “We Shall Do and We Shall Hear (2)”: … And since a person must annul his reason and his thoughts before the Creator, he must accustom himself on the outside. This is called “doing,” which is called, “We shall do.” And all those annulments will enable him to annul his reason and thoughts before the Creator.

Thus, it turns out that one who has more knowledge has more work annulling himself before the Creator. But one who is a fool doesn’t need to annul his reason, since he has no reason. It follows that the only merit of reason is that one has something to annul, and this is the only reason why one should aspire for knowledge. And one who is not ready for that, it is better for him to have no knowledge.

This is called “His wisdom is more than his deeds.” This means that he has more knowledge than he can annul, since the annulment is considered doing and not hearing. “Hearing” means understanding, and doing is only by force, without reason. This is called, “We shall do and we shall hear.” Therefore, if he has the power of doing, he will be able to receive hearing because his basis is faith and not knowledge.

We should attain a state in which we can control at least some of our sensations and our mind. If my heart and mind will be under my authority, in my hands, I will be able to use only the part of my desires and intentions in which I can bestow and not receive for myself.

Of course, this is not easy, but we should try to achieve  this. This means that a man is riding on a donkey (Hamor), meaning that he controls and managers his material (Homer).  This means that he controls his matter and allows his thoughts and desires to work only on such a level of quality and quantity that builds the form of Adam (Man) from them, that is similar (Domeh) to the Creator. He does it so that they are all in bestowal and love of others, beyond his selfish interests.

He uses the thoughts and the desires that are aimed at his self-benefit only for basic needs and only if he intends to sanctify them eventually so they will be “in order to bestow” in the next state.

If a person doesn’t let go of this state, it is called “we shall do and we shall hear” and it means working by “faith above reason.” Of course, it is impossible to do this immediately after a person hears about it—if he hears about this type of work at all. It takes quite a while to be under the influence of the Light at the stage of preparation so that the Light will help a person sort out everything that happens in his mind and heart. Eventually, he begins to differentiate between the actions and the intentions, reception and bestowal.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/22/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: How can we amplify the influence of the Light upon us during the study? What exactly depends on the students?

Answer: We only study about what depends on a person. What isn’t brought into effect by a person doesn’t relate to us, and we cannot understand it for the time being.

It depends on a person to come to the group, to be among his friends, to prepare for the lesson, and to connect to the lesson together with the friends so that everyone will realize that they need to feel what they study. This is the meaning of the lesson, and we can only feel it in the connection between us.

This means that the books tell us about the connection between the friends who desperately want to connect under the influence of the study, of the Light, so that in it, to attain the Creator or their general collective soul in which they will discover Him. This is the meaning of our existence, our development, the study, and of all our activities.

In order to do that, we have to study the articles of Rabash and Baal HaSulam about the connection of the friends in the group, about how the study should be conducted, and about how we should connect in our thoughts and intentions. It is actually very simple: a person, a group, and the Creator who is revealed in the group. And that’s all. Only the right general concentration can generate the desirable result.
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From the Virtual Lesson 4/21/13

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