Question: How do we work together in a group that surrenders itself to the upper?

Answer: For this, each one bows his head to each of the friends. With the help of the shattering of the Kelim you have been given the opportunity to work with the friends as with the Creator. You cannot see and attain this with your uncorrected desires; therefore, you work with the group.

The further you are from the upper Light, the further you are also from the friends. This builds the right state in you, a “shared field” where you can “play” and train with them. Your attitude to them is precisely your attitude to the Creator, but here you see results, you work together with them on changes of state, both in you and in the friends.

The Creator is absolute, and within the group there is reciprocity, the changes there prepare you much better for an encounter with Him. For you have two desires in you—a desire to receive and a desire to bestow—that appear before your ego and the ego of the friends; and through this you acquire a complete Kli ready to face the Creator.

The truth of the matter is that everything is prepared through divine wisdom, which supplies you with everything necessary in the form of the group for the entire path.

Suppose that you need to rise from level 120 to level 121. There, you find yourself in concealment also, and even further concealment, in absolute darkness, where there is no memory of the Creator, and inexplicable thoughts and feelings overwhelm you… so how do we rise from this terrible darkness to the next level? We do this only with the help of the group, as did the students of Rabbi Shimon. And you again discover that all the relationships between the friends are precisely adjusted for shaping this new level.

Question: So what can the group do to submit itself and to rise to the next level?

Answer: The group doesn’t need to submit itself; rather every member needs to submit himself to the concept of connection and unity. And then all of us together build a backing for revealing the Creator, a place for His residence, the Shechinah.

Question: But doesn’t there have to be a shared surrender when we pass through different states?

Answer: You feel what it is to be together, in one “sheaf” (omer). The main thing is to nullify, in other words, to submit yourself, with all your strength to build a connection between the friends. You humble your pride about the connection and are concerned only that everyone in the group, including the women and children, will be connected; that they will relate to each other with love, with understanding, without a single complaint against another. The Creator gives us a place for efforts, and we simply must build a connection among us. And if not, then there will be no continuation for this…
[104383]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/5/13, Writings of Rabash  

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As Baal HaSulam and other great Kabbalists write, the most important thing is that every day be as new. The “day” means a moment, not daytime. That is why your every moment should be new! And this is the main thing.

Wake up, get up, and shake yourself at any time of the day and night as if you are reborn. Cross out all that was before: all our old problems and relationships. No past problems! No emotional baggage!

Forget all the bad things that were in each group and between the groups, between all the groups and me as well. Reset, restart!
[104355]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/24/13, Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 14: I once interpreted the saying of our sages, “He whose Torah is his trade.” The measure of his faith is apparent in his practice of Torah because the letters of the word, Umanuto (his trade), are the same (in Hebrew) as the letters of the word, Emunato (his faith).

It is like a person who trusts his friend and lends him money. He may trust him with a pound, and if he asks for two pounds he will refuse to lend to him. He might also trust him with one hundred pounds, but not more. Also, he might trust him enough to lend him half his property, but not all his property. Finally, he may trust him with all his property without a hint of fear. This last faith is considered “whole faith,” and the previous forms are considered “incomplete faith.” Rather it is partial faith, whether more or less.”

Question: If I trust someone with all my property, it must be someone I know very well who is reliable and someone I trust. Here, on the contrary, we are talking about the Creator who is completely concealed from me. How can I trust Him?

Answer: What is more, according to the example, it is the person who sees the Creator as the greatest deceiver. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be any problems.

Question: Where does a person find the power to rise above his reason when the Creator is depicted to him as a great deceiver?

Answer: It is only from the Light that Reforms. It is because we have nothing, but a point of self-discernment that also was created by the Light. We still don’t understand that we have nothing. All our discernments are corporeal and it is impossible to clarify anything spiritual with them.

So, what’s left? It is a point in the heart, a small inclination to rise above the ego, and the external society, a picture of the external group that reflects the Creator’s image and with which I must cooperate, just like with the Creator. This is all that I have: a point in the heart and the group.

Additionally, there is some upper force to which I can turn if I try to be incorporated with the friends. By annulling myself, I want the force of bestowal that resides in them to reside in me too, but not because I want to be saved from the blows and the troubles. No, it is because, by these blows, I have something to give to the friends. Even if I suffer, I can add something; I can give them my devotion.

Question: How can I keep, and not annul, my inner resistance to the upper’s desire?

Answer: I cannot advise you here. The Light guides you, and its guidance focuses you on your inner development. On the way, a person begins to see and feel how the system is built and how its parts are connected. He discovers it internally.
[104224]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/13, Writings of Rabash

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Question: What are the perfect relationships between men and women in the group?

Answer: The perfect relationship is the mutual yearning to unite only our desires for the Creator and not any other desires. It is best if we don’t pay attention to the bodies. It doesn’t matter who I am dealing with, whether it is a man or a woman, but if it disturbs me, I should make it so that it doesn’t disturb me. In fact, in the spiritual world the male and the female desires exist in each of us.

There is a desire to receive, AHP and a desire to bestow, GE. This means that in the spiritual world things don’t take place the way they do in our world in the corporeal bodies. There only the desires connect, the desires for the Creator and no other desires; all the other desires are egoistic, and therefore they don’t exist in spirituality.

If a person wants to eat two meals for lunch, he should go ahead, since it doesn’t stand in the way of his spiritual advancement. If he likes a certain girl, then it doesn’t interrupt his spiritual advancement either. What’s important is what his main desire is focused on. If it is focused on the Creator everything else becomes part of that.

The relationships between men and women in the group should be regulated and organized so that they don’t interrupt the spiritual advancement in any way.

Question: Suppose that I can hug my friend as a man, but I cannot picture myself doing it correctly with women.

Answer: Your relationships with women should be established so that they don’t interfere with spiritual advancement, so that the spiritual and the physical are not confused. Spiritual is spiritual and physical is physical.
[104216]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 5

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Question: In the workshops we speak a lot about love. But you often give an example of how great Kabbalists hated each other. I am afraid. Do all of us need to go through this?

Answer: In order to feel hatred, you need to love very strongly, you need to yearn for love. We talk about this a lot in our lessons. All that happens to us, including even the worst things, is all for the good. All is given to us just so that we will rise above all that happens.

If we want to advance, we must advance towards love.

Let’s suppose that now I try to approach someone with love and as a result I feel mutual hatred from him towards me. But my love is only a formal one, and his hatred is, as if, real.

I begin to ask from the upper Light to build real love within me above this hatred. It is said, “Love covers all sins,” all the hatred.

The huge inner hatred is called “Mount Sinai” (sina – hatred in Hebrew). And the love that I acquire is already real love. In this way we advance forward.

Question: How is it possible to acquire real love all at once, bypassing hatred?

Answer: My yearning is only for love and whatever happens on the way is not important. The hatred will appear only so that you will rise above it and love others even more. But due to that, your love will increase and grow, thanks to the hatred that is constantly growing underneath it. It can’t be any other way, because the upper world was created by two contradictory and opposite attributes that connect to one complete whole.
[104184]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 5

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Question: If the created being was created in order to please it, then why must a person work in order to attain bestowal upon the Creator and cannot simply enjoy life, only goodness?

Answer: A person sometimes can enjoy the corporeal life, but not all his life and not all the time. Even very rich people who really have everything cannot feel pleasure every moment of their life since it wasn’t the goal of creation.

Looking closely, we will see that even a king’s life isn’t easy. The Creator arranges a role for everyone and forces a person to advance according to the goal of creation, in a good or a bad way. People usually advance by the path of suffering, which is called “in its time.” But if a person’s soul has a special root, he is given a chance to hasten his development, to “sanctify time,” which means that he actually can participate in the Creator’s work. In order to do so, he must hold onto two forces internally, not operate according to one force like ordinary people do.

It is impossible to advance only by pleasures in the corporeal world. We see that the world is sinking into greater suffering, despite the technological advancement that seemingly allows full prosperity. The Creator disrupts all our attempts to organize our corporeal life and doesn’t let us enjoy it. The evil inclination that He created constantly controls us, thus destroying all our good beginnings.

If our attempts didn’t contradict the goal of creation, then undoubtedly, everything  would work out somehow. We would live like animals according to our instincts and the plan of nature, and everyone would find his place in the general symbiosis. However, we cannot do that since we must reach a special state.

This refers especially to those in whom the point in the heart has awakened, but all people suffer since they feel the forces that compel them to develop. This happens “below reason,” unconsciously, without understanding where, why, and how they should develop, and what forces manage them and push them forward. A person instinctively tries to avoid an unpleasant, evil influence and is drawn to goodness. All his calculations are based only on where there is less suffering and more good.

However, for the special souls the Creator prepared a special of path of development by the good. They must summon the forces that develop them by themselves: the upper Surrounding Light that Reforms. These people are happy about the bad feeling just as they are about the good feeling, knowing and understanding that it all comes only from the Creator, that there is none else besides Him, and that He plays with us.

This entire life is a game since the upper one develops the lower one through a game, and we only need to accept the rules of this game, despite its complexity, the confusion, and its difficulty. We must exert ourselves greatly in order to identify the Creator’s game and to stay connected to the One who plays with us. In this case, we find ourselves between two forces, Pharaoh and the Creator, and are happy about the chance to advance. Then we really can advance only by the good way!

People who can hold onto these two forces and manage them by themselves like reins or who can become like a horse that advances by itself by guessing the desires of the rider, these people feel that they are happy. They have many problems. The entire world, for which they are responsible, is on their shoulders, but they are happy about their role, about the connection with the Creator whose commands they fulfill.
[104239]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 4/2/13, Writings of Rabash

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A person has to create a “safety net” around him so that he won’t break when the workload is heavy, when his sensitivity is sharpened and he is shown all the evil within him. Advancement is measured by how fast a person wakes up and feels happy for having received the “hardening of the heart,” as Baal HaSulam says: “I am happy with the revelation of the wicked.”

A person begins to work with the wicked, with all the interruptions: his lack of desire, the thought about how hard and useless the work is; he is critical of the friends and the teacher and has complaints about his life. The world around him may be in ruin and people may feel depressed, but when he looks at them, they seem to be successful. He is shown a distorted picture, and people on the street seem full of vitality and wisdom.

All this is a theater and a lie, and a person definitely needs a safety net that will make him feel secure and strengthen him to keep on moving forward. There are two conditions for that: The first condition is the group that focuses a person on the Creator. The second condition is to immediately turn to the Creator in order to receive the force of bestowal that allows him to be above the force of receiving that the Creator will evoke in him the next time. This is how a person advances.

Therefore, Rabash says that the Light helps “only those who want to leave the domination of evil,” which means those who exert themselves. I can’t hope that the Light will correct everything by itself and that nothing depends on me, that there is no point in taking steps in the direction of the friends. The Light will not influence me if I don’t first do everything that is in my power.

I am only capable of the simplest thing: to take care of the friends, to connect to them, to hug them, and to do something for them, even with the wrong intention. In response to these false intentions and these lies, the Creator gives me the hardening of the heart: I begin to feel terrible heaviness and reluctance to do it; I don’t see any sense in it. This means that the Creator reveals the evil in me, and it seems that I am getting worse each time and getting further and further away from the goal.

And the truth is that it makes sense that in everything one exerts himself one advances to a certain extent, but he doesn’t go backward. (From Rabash’s article “What is that Before the Egyptian Minister Fell, Their Outcry wasn’t Answered in the Work”). That’s the way things seem to me now since I accuse and judge everything in the world by my corruptions.

And the excuse is that one doesn’t go backward, but rather advances towards the truth, which means that I don’t approach the false goal, as I see it in my egoistic desire, but rather the truth, and then I see to what extent the evil can operate in them. To the extent that the evil is revealed in a person, he can return to the right place with the help of the group in order to turn to the Creator.

Without a group a person has no chance of remembering that he has to turn to the Creator. He will forget it and will miss the chance that he was given from Above. He will not be able to use the awakening he was given and will simply fall and drown in the evil within him. So we need an environment that raises a person to the good state and shows him in which directions he should act in order to come out of the descent.

The group operates like a mother who supports a child who is learning to walk, and he only needs to make a step forward, thus he takes one step after another until he acknowledges the total evil within him, and then the Creator helps him. Then we see that the Creator hears a person’s prayer the whole time, and that it is the Creator who has put the person through both the good states and the bad states.

… and so we need to be very strong and not to escape, but rather believe that the Creator hears every prayer. A person has to try to hold himself in every situation in the direction of the Creator and to make sure he has the necessary support. The courage is not in fighting my laziness, my bad feelings, the despair, the fatigue, or the helplessness; all my efforts should be focused on arranging the right support for myself, which means getting ready.

Thus a person “secures himself” and puts himself, in advance, in a position that doesn’t depend on him. It’s as if he buys an insurance policy. I don’t know what will happen in a moment and I want to make sure that the moment I grow weak and will not be able to control myself, then someone else who is powerful will take care of me. He will undoubtedly help me and do everything that is right for my sake.

I make myself such an insurance policy in advance: through the study, my commitment to the group, and my participation in duties. I organize everything so that when I fall, I will not be completely detached and will not get lost. This is the only way we can advance.
[103755]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/27/13

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Question: Why do we begin to love others only if we invest in them?

Answer: It is no secret that we love only ourselves—not even the people closest to us, not anyone else, but only ourselves. When can we love something or someone outside of ourselves? It is if we invest ourselves in them.

If a mother does not take care of her child, she does not love him, and, if she is given someone else’s child, continuously takes care of him, and raises him, then he will become as her own because she invested herself in him.

It is the same with anything else such as, let’s say, an artist and the picture he has painted, and so on. If I put my work, my effort, and my desire into something, then, to the extent of my effort, this object becomes dear to me because it contains part of me. I myself am in this object.

So, if for many years, we invest in the group, it becomes close to us, dear, and we cannot just leave it (if we truly invest in it).

It is a condition that you must work for the friends all the time. Then, you will begin to feel that they are close to you, and this gives you a chance to feel their desires. After all, it is precisely those desires that you receive from the group that you turn to the upper Light and it begins to shine on you.

There is no point of turning to it with your desire; it will not work. That is why we try so much and in vain. In addition, if we take the group desires and turn them to the Light, we will succeed at once. Try! You need to invest in the group. Then, it will become dear, and we quickly will feel the upper world.
[104107]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 5

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Question: How is it possible to remain loyal to the most important thing and not forget about the connection in all possible situations?

Answer: We constantly need to remind each other about that. This is called Arvut, mutual guarantee.

We must create a network that doesn’t allow us, even for one moment, to forget about the connection: read parts of the lessons or articles several times a day, talk, think, listen to our songs, and study, which means do whatever is possible in order to live within it. And in parallel with our daily business, work, and care of the family, within us there always needs to be the yearning for connection.
[104043]
From the European Convention in Germany 3/23/13, Lesson 5

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Rabash, Shlavei HaSulam, Article 19: “Come Unto Pharaoh – 1”: And about that it says, “Come unto Pharaoh,” which means that we shall go together, that I will also go with you, so that I will change nature and I want you to ask only for Me, so that I will help you change your nature and turn it from the desire to receive to the desire to bestow.

This is a very important moment, when we cannot do anything by ourselves. First we ask for something global and rely on ourselves in every other aspect, hoping to manage by ourselves and to leave the Creator only “His part.” But the more we advance up the ladder or towards the exodus from Egypt, before the ascent to the first level, we see more clearly that we are weak and that we cannot do anything right, not even one action, not a thought or an intention. I actually grow weaker along the way, and so it says: “And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out.”

But then it says, “and their cry rose up to G-d.” It’s then that we have an opportunity to pray, to ask, to demand. This is to what we are led.

According to my advancement, I grow weaker and my prayer, my request for help, grows until I reach a state in which I cannot do anything, the darkness and powerlessness take hold of me and at the same time I reach a whole request. Until then, things don’t move.

So it’s clear that I cannot manage without the support of the group, without the friends’ mutual guarantee. I feel that I’m falling down further: I lose my powers, the goal grows pale and doesn’t attract me forward, my motivation disappears and the evil inclination grows before my very eyes while the point in the heart descends further downward and there is nothing left. The good Pharaoh gradually becomes evil and vicious to such an extent that it seems that there is no way I can be free of his domination. So where can I find the urge, the attraction, to carry on if not from the group?

Generally speaking, I reach a state of hopelessness and maximum separation (∆) between the current state and the desired one. Still I refuse to withdraw; I have to come out to the Light…
[103991]
From the 3^rd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/31/13, Writings of Rabash

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