Question: There are people who we like more than others; there are friends and enemies. Is it possible to maintain good relationships with everybody in the group?

Answer: First of all, you should uncover corrupt relationships among you. Let’s say, I don’t like someone. I can’t stand him without any idea of why I don’t like him. There is something in him that repels me and I can’t do anything about it. My hatred pours over the edges and I literally “spread poison.”

So, people around should “inadvertently” say good things about this person to me. All of a sudden I hear: “You know, I saw him recently and he told me what a great thing he accomplished! It’s wonderful!”

At first, I will be shocked, but later on under the influence of the common opinion, my evaluation criteria will change. It’s inevitable since those people who I admire and respect relate to him in a good way. Gradually, I start valuing this person and being very polite with him without any traces of hatred.

Let’s pay attention to how our relationship develops. Though we won’t become the best of friends immediately, it’s possible that at least my bias towards this person will change to a cautious and distant respect. My prior attitude to him sharply and strongly “manifests” in me. It changes to a positive approach, thus helping me cope with my prior negative feelings. It happens naturally. My attitude to this person transforms against my will.
[101386]
From KabTV’s “Staffing Secrets” 2/8/13

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Question: We often speak about the other; what is the desire to receive of the other?

Answer: All of reality that you can imagine is all about the other; in other words, it is everything that is outside the “self.” We should understand that the “self” is merely a spark and that’s all. Everything else is restricted and unimportant. You may eat, drink, and enjoy life, but only in order to sustain yourself. Everything is determined by one’s intention.

You must see yourself as a spark. Everything else is the animal level and you should provide what it needs, but all your attention should be aimed outwards, towards what is external to the spark. There, outside yourself, is your desire, your spiritual vessel, everything that you can only imagine: all of the still nature, the vegetative, the animal and the speaking levels.

You can manage automatically with the first three levels of your external desires (the still, vegetative, and animate levels) since there is no resistance on their part. But we have trouble with human nature since, in it, you see yourself, your essence, what you are. It’s like the atlas of your inner spiritual anatomy with all its components. Everything is in there, and still, it’s your desire, and so you should work with it.

It doesn’t mean that you have to correct others. Simply by worrying about them, you discover that they belong to you. This is why we disseminate. It’s as if you want to reach the others, to pass on the method of correction to them, but in order to get close to them you have to understand and to feel that it is your own “self.” Then, by really feeling yourself in them, you begin to understand what is written in the books of Kabbalists.
[101866]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Correction is possible by great sufferings that cannot even be described since it requires the full recognition of evil in each individual property in order to refuse to receive in each one and to move on to the path of bestowal. This path is impossible since a person cannot bear such sufferings.

Therefore, the advancement is usually somewhere in the middle, between the path of sufferings and the path of the Torah (the path of the Light), between “I shall hasten it” and “in its time,” along what is called “Derech Eretz (the path of earth).” A person advances as he is pushed from behind by the sufferings or drawn forward by the Light. He cannot be on the same path all the time.

It’s impossible to move to the path of the Torah from the beginning, unconditionally, but to the extent that we try to do it—especially by actually building the Shechina, which means by building the connection between us in mutual bestowal, according to our exertion and our responsibility for others—then, to that extent, we leave the path of suffering and advance towards the goal along “Derech Eretz,” along the middle road.

It isn’t that the “middle line” is better for our spiritual ascent, but the “middle road” is a compromise between the two roads on which we should remain. The only choice is to strengthen our society so that it will influence everyone. We should see the friends as the area where the Creator will be revealed, the attribute of bestowal. Thus I see my soul and not myself.

A person can check himself and his advancement according to how he worries about the friends and the group so that the revelation will take place in them, like a mother who worries about her babies. Then one can be sure that he understands what advancement means, that he knows what to add to it, and that he can actually fulfill this in this world now and bring his intention to wholeness.
[101859]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13

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The Zohar is a unique quality, the upper Light that comes to correct us if we are ready for the correction and discover the place that needs to be corrected. This place is the connection between us, and since we are a result of the shattering, we have to try to connect in order to find the common attribute of bestowal between our vessels (desires).

When we discover that it doesn’t exist among us, we regret it and want the Light to influence us and turn the hatred and repulsion that occurs between us to the bestowal and mutual love we want to discover. So we will demand that the Light perform this work and turn us from those who are repulsed by one another to those who come closer and connect to one another and are united.

Then, to the extent and the intensity of the connection between us that we attain, we will feel the common force of bestowal that is called Light of Hassadim. If we really want to make an effort to bestow upon one another in order to discover the Creator (which is already a different, more sublime kind of work), then in the same Light of Hassadim that is revealed among us, we will see what needs to be done, which special inner efforts, and in them we will discover the actual action of bestowal called “the revelation of the Creator to the created beings.” We will feel how we bestow and bring pleasure to the same force, to the same thought, to the same root. We have to try to attain all that here and now in the connection among us.
[101856]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13, The Zohar

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While reading The Zohar, a person should yearn to reach the state he reads or hears about, so that his connection to the friends and his connection with the Creator will all become the same thing for him. It’s because The Zohar, like all the other Kabbalah books, speaks about the connection among us and the connection between us and the Creator. Therefore, if the text that I hear while reading The Zohar separates me from the group and from the Creator, if the story doesn’t match what I think about my connection with the Creator, then I am not in the text yet, I am not absorbed in it.

First, before reading a text, I have to think about the place that we need to correct, about the connection between us into one whole, and where the Creator, the general force of bestowal, the Light, will be revealed to us. This is exactly what we read about. Every Kabbalah book that I open, whether it is Psalms, or Shulchan Aruch, the Babylonian Talmud, the Torah, the Bible, The Zohar, or TES, they all speak about the same thing: about how we connect in every possible way and how according to that the Creator is revealed.

So I constantly read about the action I perform and I yearn that all will become one whole: the text that I hear and see before me and how I imagine that it’s expressed in the environment, in my connection with the friends and with the Creator. I yearn for them to be dressed one on top of the other. So the more I feel the disparity between them and the harder I try to connect them, the more I summon the Light that Reforms which is a prayer, MAN.
[101853]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 3/4/13, The Zohar

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Baal HaSulam, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar“: This environment will help him obtain the greatness of his rav through love of friends who appreciate the rav.

Question: How does the love of friends help attain the greatness of the rav?

Answer: The term “rav” includes the Creator, and in general everything that helps a person rise to the next level. The friends are those who help a person not in rising to the next level, but rather in the recognition of the greatness of that level. A person doesn’t see himself on the next level, but with the help of the group and thanks to the influence of the friends, he begins to imagine the greatness of the next level.

We use the “fuel” of the group, although no one has attained the highest level yet. The general spirit and general atmosphere are enough because it is our nature: A person appreciates what his environment values and considers it to be important. It’s according to this principle that we grow.

Question: So why should I love the friends, isn’t it enough to simply appreciate them?

Answer: Love of friends is already the fulfillment. And the first step I should take is accepting the path and the goal, and agree to accept the system and the idea of the upper force to which we connect and attain. Then how can I raise these values above myself? Through the support of the environment that will help me feel the greatness of the goal.

The “environment” is the Kabbalah books, the friends, and the teacher. Together they lead me to the Creator. This means that all these factors must constantly be important to me, above my self-importance. Only then will I be able to advance.

Question: But still, in ordinary life the environment influences us even if we don’t think positively about it…

Answer: True, whether we like it or not, the environment influences us by using our ego, our desire to receive which is always ready to enjoy. It is simply shown different types of pleasure; it perceives them like bait and swallows them.

On the other hand, I am not attracted to the goals that the group presents. On the contrary, because of them I have to give up things and to aspire to receive pleasure from bestowal, which I don’t really understand. I don’t understand it to such an extent that I even feel repulsed by it. The whole way is made of concessions, of self-annulment, of annulment before the group, although nothing in me is attracted to anything like that.

So it turns out that I don’t like the group and teacher’s message about the Creator. There has to be mutual work on the part of the individual and on the part of the group. The friends have to work together so that everyone will feel that these things are obligatory and desirable, so that every person will see how essential and important he or she is and that the general enthusiasm will flood his consciousness and his soul.

If we don’t create a kind of “brainwash” here, we will simply not be able to advance. External impressions will not help us here and neither will nice words or the friends’ actions. Internally, a person will still reject the idea of bestowal if it isn’t reinforced by the group’s serious attitude where everyone is ready to invest in it and to spur one another on.

People who hold on to their externality spin around the goal, around the system for decades. Some of them become Hassidim, some become involved in dry studying, and others deal with dissemination, but they don’t implement the method in the correct efficient way.

All this happens when the environment is not strong enough to sweep a person towards the goal. After all, by that we fight our nature, our desire to receive, which we have to neutralize and to even draw towards bestowal. This is extremely difficult, but this is the key. If we succeed, we will break through to the upper dimension, and if not, then as we say “we will retire”…
[101637]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/21/13, “A Speech for the Completion of The Zohar”

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Question: What is the most critical point in the group work when friends’ egoism breaks out in the group?

Answer: I think that here women should go to the forefront.

When there are serious problems between men, women should somehow subtly try to smooth the conflict, to indicate, as a mother to a child, that all this is temporary, that these relations are manifested between them on purpose and they should not be carried away, like children, and forget about the cause while being entangled in the consequences.

If it happens that men are not in a position to resolve a conflict themselves, then the women help them.

And on the other hand, men should restrain women if they start criticizing each other, gossiping, and using an “evil tongue.”
[101751]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Question: If I have a problem with someone in the group, how should I behave in the group and outside of it?

Answer: It is best to speak openly, not during the lesson, but while talking with the friends.

It is necessary, in spite of everything, to say what you think about your friend and why. Ask for an explanation of whether your attitude towards him is correct and what can be done.

This will strengthen the group. Thus you set a good example of how it is possible to turn estrangement into friendliness. This is exactly a spiritual action.
[101747]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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Baal HaSulam, “The Essence of Religion and Its Purpose” Go and ask a botanist how many phases the fruit undergoes from the time it becomes visible until it is completely ripe.

The problem is that I don’t see the purpose on my way to it; I don’t feel what the end of correction will be like. It isn’t by chance that it says, “Why don’t you show a fool a work that is half done?” In the middle of the way I cannot see the end.

It is clear to me that I am a fool since I don’t see the final wholeness, but what can I do about it? What can be demanded of me at this point? My life isn’t going well corporeally or spiritually, everything goes wrong in my life so why should I justify the Creator all of a sudden?

Wise people may know that the apple is destined to ripen, but I don’t see anything; it is bitter and that’s it.

This means that I need “the faith in sages,” the faith in those who have already been through this path; I have to adhere to a wise person, a teacher, to such an extent so that I can use his wholeness, only then will I be able to justify the creation and the Creator. But until then, I don’t hear what they say to me. Without the feeling of wholeness that is acquired from the upper, which means from the group and the teacher, I will always be a chip of wood floating in the sea, being thrown from side to side by the waves.

Question: But still, examples like the apple or the worm in the radish give us some clue?

Answer: They calm you down and help us quiet our conscience: “All this is not in vain; it cannot be that nature will not allow the apple to ripen. It means that all our sufferings will pay off…”

It is true, but this is already religion. People are fed these “conclusions” in order to calm them down: “Wait, soon you will reach Heaven…”

We see it differently: I want to attain wholeness now, and it is possible only by adhesion to the group and the teacher. I need the final result now since otherwise I will not make one step forward.

However, if I cannot use this means, I will not be able to advance. In Shamati, article 25, it says: Instead, there is only one counsel then, to cling to his teacher and to the books. This is called “From the mouth of books and from the mouth of authors.” Only by cleaving to them can he change his mind and will for the better. However, witty arguments will not help him change his mind, but only the remedy of Dvekut (adhesion), for this is a wondrous cure, as the Dvekut reforms him.

In other words, all the concepts upon which he builds his building, saying one must always follow in the path of the Creator, is founded in the Dvekut with his teacher. Thus, if he loses the foundation, then all the concepts are powerless, since they will now be lacking the foundation.

Hence, one must not rely on one’s own mind, but cleave once more to books and authors, for only that can help him, and no wit and intellect, as they are lifeless.
[101644]
From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 2/28/13,”Introduction to The Book of Zohar”

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Question: How can I keep the Light of Purim all year round?

Answer: There is no need to hold anything; this is wrong because it is an egoistic form of the desire to grasp, to possess, to dominate. I don’t care what will happen in the next moment!

If I am in the property of bestowal like Mordecai, I do not need anything else! The main thing is to be similar to the Creator and I am not interested in anything but that.

That is why you should not think about how to become fulfilled quickly and inflated like a bubble. On the contrary, you must think how to achieve such a property when no event will be able to influence you, to touch you. All the time, you will break away from yourself and rise above higher and higher to be completely only in the property of bestowal.

And the fact that you have such a healthy appetite, “I want to be full all the time,” is also good. This is useful; it drives a person forward. So, go on!

In the end, you will be able to be content only when the Light of Hassadim and the Light of Hochma fill Malchut in a balanced way. Then, you will really be able to fill your entire Malchut, all your desires together with the whole world. But on your own—no way.
[101679]
From the Virtual Lesson 2/24/13

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