“I labored and found!” I labored means that I have built a spiritual vessel. Until you have built it, you have not exerted yourself enough, and you will not be able to leave Egypt.

After you complete your exertion in Egypt, you must format it, which is called the union before Mt. Sinai. The slavery in Egypt has hardened our hearts and did not let us unite. After the exodus from Egypt, all our work is aimed at unity.

We wanted to do it in Egypt, but we were not allowed to since unity is already a vessel. Egypt is a state in which you still exert yourself in order to escape your egoistic desire, while it (as it is called Pharaoh or the Creator’s posterior) doesn’t let you complete the building of your vessel.

For the time being, your exertion is missing, but the moment the full measure is accumulated—which means that you have enough feelings, understanding and clear discernments with which you already can feel the next level—then you can leave.

However, what we leave Egypt with is not a vessel yet. Only now, after the exodus from Egypt, can we discover to what extent our vessel is incomplete since it lacks the point of unity among us. In order to unite, we need the Light that Reforms, the Torah. After the escape from Egyptian slavery, we are about to be given the Torah and to receive it.

After we receive the Torah, the Light that Reforms within it helps us unite our vessel. In Egypt, we couldn’t attain unity. It was the domination of Egypt that didn’t let us unite. Now, however, we can complete the building of our vessel.

Then, while wandering in the desert, we will sin constantly, time after time, and correct the sins. By correcting them, we will say each time, “in memory of the exodus from Egypt” since all the other events are derived from it, and in the desert, we gradually correct them.

The exile in Egypt was supposed to last 400 years in order to attain a complete vessel that we later correct. There are no corrections made in Egypt. However, in order to correct evil, we must clarify it each time as if to revive the same sorrow, the same state.

Thus, forty years of wandering in the desert is a chain of endless sins. However, in fact, these are not sins, but the revelation of evil to an increasingly greater depth in order to correct it. The preparation for that was made in Egypt, and, so, we constantly remind ourselves, “in memory of the exodus from Egypt!”
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: The exertion is the same vessel in which the Creator is revealed, but what does my exertion have to do with the exertion of the friends? Is my exertion enough for the Creator to be revealed in them, or does it have to be the sum of our collective exertions?

Answer: It is impossible to answer this unequivocally. I see the friends as my eyes show me, in my perception. If I see them today as I saw them yesterday, it means that I haven’t changed at all. If I see that, today, they are greater, deeper, cleverer, and more successful, it means that I have changed.

However, we cannot connect all these states yet. They advance, or I advance, seeing their advancement. The truth is that they are all at the end of correction already, at an infinite height, and it is just me looking at them from my level.

The growth and the advancement of the friends impresses me, but isn’t it they who grow? I have changed, and therefore, I see that they have grown.

We cannot explain this by using our earthly language, which is totally egoistic. It is just as it is impossible to explain the new economy by using old terms since a healthy economy is the right integral connection. For the same reason, it is impossible to explain the relationships among the friends.

We have no choice if in the meantime we operate in our egoistic desires. We must look at things like in mathematics, one parameter after another. If there are several variables, and I depend on them all, I must fix one parameter and check how the change affects the second parameter.

Then, I fix the second parameter and check its dependence on the first parameter. Only then do I connect them to one system of equations in order to solve them together.

There can only be one element in every equation that I can find. If there are two elements, we need another equation. When we have two equations with two elements, we can already solve the problem.

However, in the meantime, we cannot combine two equations in our analysis. We can see what happens with one parameter and with another parameter separately, but we cannot connect them into one system.

Our brain cannot perceive these two opposite parameters as one. So, by explaining this, I am like a woman in labor who cannot give birth yet. It cannot be explained in words. Everyone will discover this according to his vessels.

In Kabbalistic explanations, we must pass the information from the world in which everything is united, to our world in which everything is totally separated.

This means that these are different software, different formula, and different approaches.

We try to understand the explanation by using earthly language and to grasp in our earthly minds what happens in the upper world. Even physicists already understand that it is simply impossible. They come across phenomena that are on the borderline where matter disappears, and, thus, the scientific language ends.

Modern physics will advance in a way that in each of the following stages, in every experiment, there will be more and more hidden parameters. It will become a hidden science. We will see that we have managed to advance to a certain point after which everything we had before disappears. Science can reveal only how each of the parameters disappears, but not more than that.

Our job is to continue with our exertion in the group, and eventually everything will be clear.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: We are all representatives of different countries and different cultures. What is the relationship between our inner work and everyone’s culture and habits?

Answer: I am familiar with many students in the world and do not see any difference between them. Their mental components, psychological and educational base do not matter. Students from England, Turkey, South America, and Germany seem to be very different people, but, when we begin to study Kabbalah, there is only more or less external sensitivity.

Suddenly, I see the Germans weeping at a convention in Germany. That does not seem like them at all in everyday life; everything changes.

We do not understand each other in our normal mentality, but when we begin to engage in connection, in Kabbalah, all this completely disappears. After all, we are not involved in the earthly ego, but rise and build the property of bestowal above it.

Of course, the outward expression of feelings is manifested in everyone in a different way. One cries and the other shows his emotions in a more expressive way. But then it all is smoothed out because that spiritual superstructure that we create in ourselves is the same for everyone.

However, people are still different, and everyone builds the property of bestowal above his individual egoism, but I do not see that mentality, education, upbringing, or profession matter very much here. Everything is erased. By beginning to correct themselves, people become very similar, but not externally: Everyone retains his own individual character, but their earthly essence disappears; we all feel each other equally; we represent what we experience.

Suppose that various people have gathered now at a congress, but everyone experiences the same internal phenomena.

So, do not think about this. All this will be erased without a trace. We need to gradually feel that we rise to the next level, to the next dimension, the next universe adjacent to our universe, called the world of Assiya. There, we will continue to exist only as forces that are projected on our present consciousness, the corporeal world, as a beam of light coming from a projector on a screen that depicts a non-existing world on it.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

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We are at the bottom of the spiritual ladder, where every level has its special Light that grows as we climb in quantity and quality. Its influence on us changes our attributes in which we begin to know the reality that we live in. The only reality is the Creator.

It turns out that the levels of concealment become levels of revelation. Every level is made of two wholes. The first whole is a person’s yearning to reach the right deficiency by subduing himself each time to the environment, ready to accept its influence, and to be impressed by the upper Light, ready to rise above reason. He constantly prepares himself for the influence of the Light, which is called working at night, in the dark, in raising MAN, in prayer.

He operates according to his powers and doesn’t know what he yearns for. This means that Malchut rises to Bina, to Hafetz Hesed, to faith, and the main thing for a person is that his action will bring the Creator contentment. As a result of this correct and fulfilling action, the Light influences him and changes him.

All our advancement is by our being reborn over and over again. It is said: “Every day should be new to you,” which means that it’s impossible to compare today to yesterday. It is because every day a new vessel is born and it has a new basis, new Reshimot (spiritual genes), new values, and by that it is completely different from the previous state. A person already understands that his actions yesterday were mistakes, malicious actions, or Mitzvot (commandments), and he attributes everything to the Creator which eventually brings him to adhesion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: How do we build a student’s readiness to perceive the wisdom of Kabbalah in the group?

Answer: Through the connection. A person cannot be ready to perceive if he is not connected to the friends. They have to unite by raising the teacher’s greatness in their eyes, thus building the right connection. Someone small can only receive from someone great, from the group, from the teacher, from the Creator, if he lowers his head before them. This is the path up the spiritual ladder.

When the students connect, they create the necessary condition, and become one whole. It is a sign that each one has annulled himself before the others, and considers himself the smallest in the group, ready to bestow upon others. Being connected means to keep all the society’s conditions.

We begin to connect, and after many years go through the hardening of the heart, which is also called “the ten plagues of Egypt.” First we may think, why don’t the plagues begin immediately when they arrive in Egypt? But it isn’t so; first it is nice and pleasant to connect, just like it was nice and pleasant for the children of Israel when they settled in Egypt and received all their nourishment through Joseph who connected everyone to Yesod.

Joseph is Yesod that connects the five phases or the five senses: Hesed, Gevurah, Tifferet, Netzach, and Hod. Rabash used to give the example of a salad that is made of five ingredients: tomatoes, cucumbers, pepper, onion, and parsley. If you cut them all up and mix them, they will create something new, which is the result of the connection between them. It is the same with Yesod; it has nothing of its own, but it is the outcome of the connection, of their attributes. Through it, the children of Israel acquire thickness in Egypt and an increasingly greater desire, but in the meantime, during the “seven years of satiety,” this thickness operates in favor of the connection between them.

It was at the beginning of the exile in Egypt that the sons of Jacob together with Joseph sang “How good and pleasant it is when brothers sit together.” They felt that it is worthwhile to connect since together they succeed; together they are strong. Thus Egypt enslaves us by an egoistic connection.

This is the process until such a great thickness is revealed that it is impossible to do anything with it. Then Moses escapes from Egypt to the desert. He simply couldn’t be together with his ego. During the “seven years of hunger,” we discover that this enslavement, the adhesion to the corporeal values, is not in our favor, but the opposite, it detaches us from the goal. Suddenly I begin to understand where I am and what is happening to me. I look at my “animal” desire that has grown into a giant heavy body, and I see that this “animal” is no longer mine, that I am under its control, under it.

This is called “a new king rose in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph.” It is a good thing, since he shows us the truth, our true state compared to the Creator, and thus he brings us closer to our Father in Heaven.

Then, at the end, there are the ten plagues: We hold on to our unity and these plagues hit us in order to break us apart; they are all aimed against the connection.

If I am ready to rise above the ego, to beat the king of Egypt, I rise above these plagues in order to remain connected and united. It is more important for me than Pharaoh’s afflictions. On the background of the plagues, I ask the Creator to keep us connected since without this connection, we will not be able to leave Egypt; this is all our work.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/26/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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The desire to receive, which we are in now, is bad. It is very good if we want to enjoy life, and it helps us as much as it can. But it becomes bad and cruel if a desire to bestow is evoked in us, and it doesn’t let us adhere to the Creator, to the upper level. The desire to receive places a Machsom (barrier) between the upper and us, which does not allow us to pass.

The point, the spark of bestowal, strongly yearns to adhere to the Creator. The more the desire to receive dominates it, the more it yearns for the Creator. The more the domination of the ego is revealed, the more strongly this point has to struggle with it. And so its intention for the Creator grows and at the same time the sorrow and the pain also grow from the inability to adhere to the Creator. Its feeling of exile becomes greater and more bitter.

The tension, pressure, and yearning grow, and thus the vessels are formed. The vessels for attaining this upper level are not formed by the desire to receive that has turned into a desire to bestow, but are derivative of it. It is a result of the efforts and the sufferings, of the struggle between the spark of bestowal in a person and his desire to receive.

The spark struggles in order to adhere to the Creator, but it cannot do so since the desire to receive holds it by its feet and doesn’t let it break free. Then its exertion (for which the desire to receive is responsible since it held the “point in the heart” in its hands) becomes the vessel in which the unity of the next level is revealed.

This means that the desire to receive itself doesn’t become this vessel, it always remains restricted, but we work above it, by building our vessel above it, from the bricks of our exertion.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/25/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Let’s draw a spiritual scheme of the present world order. In the center of the circle is the global organization of Bnei Baruch (BB). The first circle around Bnei Baruch are the Jews who are in Israel (Common Israel), the next circle is all the Jews around the world. The outer circle is the nations of the world, the rest of the world. Baal HaSulam wrote about this in this article, “Introduction to The Book of the Zohar,” where he clarified the question of the internality and externality.

The correction, without a doubt, depends only on the inner group. It begins to influence and to transfer this correction to the outside, and only in this consistent way, this correction spreads through all the circles, from the inner circle outwards. Thus, the faster we can reach the Israelis, the faster, easier, and more correctly can we work with the rest of the world.

It is clear that in the meantime, it is in the intermediate stages. Through the Jews in Israel and outside of Israel, we will be able to reach the most outer circles. And this is a big problem, a most serious obstacle on the way, especially the Jews that are outside of Israel. In Israel, at least, it is somehow possible to shake and stir them, but the next circle is very problematic.

But in any case, this is the way the spiritual ladder is built. The Jews who live in other countries of the world, they anyway comprise the inner part in comparison to humanity in general.

Until we correct this inner part, the Jews of Israel (ISR) and outside of Israel, especially the Jews of the USA, the process won’t include the nations of the world (World). There is no other way, only in this way will the upper light spread, bringing the general correction.
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From the 4^th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: During the process of spiritual work, I reach a state where I am not able to rise above my ego, and that causes tension in me, anger. Is it within a person’s power to rise above the ego, or can he only request it?

Answer: A person can never rise above his ego by himself. He can only request this from the Creator.

You can fight against all kinds of corporeal habits, for example, to stop smoking, to go on a diet, etc., thereby replacing one ego with another which is more beneficial for you.

But it is not in your power to rise above it, since the ego itself has no such means. For this, one needs to bring forth the upper Light, which is the ego’s opposite attribute, the attribute of bestowal, which will implement this action.

After rising to the new level, you will level off, establish yourself, see, learn what is done on this level by the new force, and then fall again, but this time even lower, to a darker space, to terrible confusion, in both feelings and in consciousness.

Sometimes you feel yourself as drunk, and sometimes as lost, without will power, completely helpless, and sometimes all of these together. It will seem to you that the problems pile up on you from all sides, that life is dark, and that there is no brightness in front of you.

All of this happens so that you will organize the correct connection with the group, the correct surroundings that will support you, and with each moment it says to you that you must turn to the Creator

You need to see it according to your friends who must show this to you. If any of the friends don’t show that he is turning to the Creator, yearning for Him, and that the most important thing for him is the importance of the goal, you must show him, since we are influenced by the group, from the group’s yearnings. You need to play, act for the friends, showing that you have a real yearning for going forward. Within you, you may be “dead”; that doesn’t matter, but on the outside, you need to play for the sake of saving the friends. If you do this, then you won’t have descents.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

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Question: What must the world groups do in order to constantly strengthen?

Answer: Personally, I feel that we must work together so that not only I, as a teacher, will nurture you with “drops of wisdom,” but also you, as students, will participate actively in our general learning process. Since without your exact and correct desire, forcing me to speak, I cannot say anything, I cannot do anything. We have now arrived at such a mutual, integral act.

For me, it is really a surprise. I didn’t think it would be revealed so suddenly and in such a sharp manner. I am very happy about this. But this mutual cooperation puts additional responsibilities on us, confirming once again the need for the relevant condition that I actually be at a level equal with you. There is the concept of a teacher-friend. Rabash also spoke about this. Thus, we need to participate together more frequently in all the events.

The friends must be equal. That is our mutual work, and here I constitute your senior friend and not your Rav. This is where the general integrality leads us.

Question: Does that mean that we need to be more self-reliant?

Answer: Of course! I constantly talk about that. After all, I am not eternal. And you will be left alone. But so that you won’t be left alone, you need to learn to act and advance forward independently. For this you have a method, a working system, tens of thousands of recorded hours in the archive, and books. There is everything! And I need now to slowly descend from the level of Rav to the level of friend, and then all of us together will discover the upper world.
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From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/9/12, Lesson 6

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Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 102: This is why it is written that all who learn Torah Lo Lishma, their Torah becomes a potion of death for them. Not only do they not emerge from concealment of the face to disclosure of the face, since they did not set their minds to labor and attain it, the Torah that they accumulate greatly increases their concealment of the face. Finally, they fall into concealment within concealment, which is considered death, being completely detached from one’s root.

This is what happens if a person doesn’t make an effort through the environment, through the study and all the means he has, in order to reach the revelation of the Creator, which means to discover the attribute of bestowal and love of others inside him, in order to arrive through the love of the created beings to the love of the Creator. He has to focus on that so that the result of his study will be the revelation of the attribute of bestowal upon others, no matter how artificial and meaningless it may seem to him at first and contrary to his own nature.

At first he refuses to hear about it and to agree to it. But if he returns to it time after time, despite all the obstacles, and performs all the requirements as required and determined by nature, by the Creator, as a result of the crisis, and all the other conditions that are revealed to him, he gradually agrees that the goal of the study is to reach self-negation.

It is a very special action, not the kind we imagine at the beginning of the way. But to the extent that the changes occur in us along the way, we discover new definitions each time, what—restriction, the other, connection, mutual guarantee, Creator, the attribute of bestowal and love, etc.—mean. We already begin to understand what “the potion of death” and the “potion of life” mean and why the Torah brings such opposite phenomena. Thus we gradually begin to clarify the right way and direction.

A person often falls into situations in which he does not see how wrong he is. But “what one’s mind doesn’t do, time does.” The only way out is to advance as “an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load,” to go on studying day after day as it says: “Do anything but leave!” He doesn’t understand what is happening: The ego is given to him from above and so are all the conditions he is in; everything is done by the upper force.

He exerts himself, does something, but so far he doesn’t understand what is going on. The main thing is not to leave, but to at least perform the simplest actions mechanically. If he can somehow carry on this way, then he should be happy that he manages to do at least this.

So we should respect anyone who makes efforts to go through each day and to participate as much as he can, as much as he is allowed from above. It is an essential condition to come to this place, to this state. Afterward there is already the work of clarification: Why, what for, what will I get from it, why am I participating in this, what is the desired outcome that I expect?

I have to learn from the example of Rabbi Shimon and his students since we want to connect and to be like them, to sit among them. They felt hatred or love toward one another. We have to reach these contrasting discernments.
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From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/24/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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