Rabash, “Make Yourself a Rav and Buy Yourself a Friend 1”: If a person is very tired and goes to sleep at around 11 pm, if he is awakened at 3 am, of course he will say that he has no energy to get up to study because he is very tired. And if he feels a little weak or has a slight temperature, the body will certainly have no power to rise at the time he is accustomed to rising.

But if a person is very tired, feeling sick, and goes to sleep at midnight, but is awakened at 1 am and is told, “There is a fire in the yard; it’s about to come into your room. Quick, get up and you’ll save your life in return for the effort you are making,” he will not make any excuses about being tired, mindless, or sick. Rather, even if he is very sick, he will make every effort to save his life. Evidently, because he will obtain an important thing, the body has the energy to do what it can to get what he wants.

Therefore, while working on “Make for yourself a rav,” a person believes that it is, “For they are our lives and the length of our days.” To the extent that he feels that this is his life, the body has enough strength to overcome all the obstacles, as written in the allegory. For this reason, in all of man’s works, in studying or in praying, he should focus all his work on obtaining the greatness and importance of the rav. Much work and many prayers should be made on that alone.

In the words of The Zohar, this is called “Raising Divinity from the dust”

…It follows that all we lack is, “Make for yourself a rav, to sense the greatness of the Creator. Then, everyone will be able to achieve the goal, which is to adhere to Him.”

We see how in our groups around the world there are sometimes many people who arrive at the lesson and sometimes very few. It is hard to judge them, since it says: “Do not judge a friend until you are in his place.” But no matter what the hardships are, the reason for being absent from a lesson is still the same—the lack of feeling its importance.

The feeling of importance depends on the group and not on the person himself. We see different groups on the screen during the lesson: Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and many other groups. Sometimes we see that the place is full of people, but usually there are just a few. The reason for all that is the lack of feeling the importance of the goal, which we don’t develop in us. From Above, the feeling of the importance is intentionally lowered, so that a person will need the group and feel that he depends on the environment that should increase the feeling of importance. To the extent that he adheres to the group, the importance of the goal increases in him, and he is attracted to the group and advances.

But if he doesn’t feel the importance of the group and doesn’t adhere to it, then accordingly he doesn’t feel the importance of the goal. Therefore, he will not be able to advance and eventually will leave.

It all depends only on feeling the importance of the goal: to what extent a person yearns for it, studies, and demands the awareness of this importance during the study. It serves him as the fuel necessary for his advancement.

Our main concern should be that we lack the feeling of the importance of the goal, the fuel, the Creator’s greatness, that it should be enough for our advancement, so that I won’t stop thinking about Him, and will constantly worry that the feeling of importance will draw me to the center of the group in which I will find the entrance to the spiritual world.

“Rav” (big, great) is the Creator. “Make yourself a Rav” means to raise the Creator above all the other values a person has, so that nothing compares to it. According to such priorities, a person will determine his daily schedule and his attitude to everything.

“Buy yourself a friend” is required in order to increase the importance of the Rav. Therefore, you should buy yourself friends; pay them by your attitude, by your efforts, by serving them, so that they will help you acknowledge the greatness of the Rav, the greatness of the Creator.

Then during the study, we will have the right prayer for the one thing that we need—the Creator’s greatness. Everything is focused only around this greatness: the prayer, the illumination, and the love. Only the environment can help us by that, if a person evokes it by himself.
[95863]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/19/12

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The whole world is a force and not matter. So you give importance to the force of thoughts and your attitude to the friends. It is what operates in reality. By your attitude to others, you correct and change the world. No one can stand in the way of such power. If you think and worry about the connection with the friends from morning to night and that it should bring us, the world, and the Creator good, then you are actually performing a very powerful action, which cannot be compared with anything else.

The power of thought, the power of our desire, is the most important thing. If you activate it according to the goal of the creation, then you influence things much more strongly than an ordinary person.

Question: Can this be proven?

Answer: The point is that I don’t want to prove it to myself. The proof will give me egoistic confidence, while I want the opposite, I want to bestow upon the friends by using these forces so that I won’t be able to see the result. I want to help, to connect, to love, but not in order to receive a reward.

After all, I need something else: I am ready to pay with my attitude toward the friends, in order to discover one thing only—whose command am I fulfilling? I want to discover the Creator and to bring Him contentment by that.

Then, I have to conceal the result, so that the reward won’t bribe me. By that, I attain the point from which bestowal begins.

Question: Why am I not attracted to this?

Answer: Because this truth is opposite from us.

Question: So how can we advance?

Answer: By small lies every step of the way. You conceal the truth from yourself and play as if it is attractive and will bring you some reward.

Question: What will force me to think about the friends all day?

Answer: The recognition of the importance: “I will profit from this, I will attain spirituality; otherwise, my whole life will be wasted in vain. I have to attain something in life.” It says: “Taste and see that God is good.” “So, where is He? How can I taste Him? I have to manage until the evening, no matter what…”

You are told: “If you worry about the friends, if you lower your head before them, if you join them, then you will discover spirituality.” You are ready for that; you imagine the reward according to your taste, as it says: “Educate a child according to his way.” You imagine spirituality as tempting, as some great spaces, hovering in space, forces, and you are drawn to them.

Everyone depicts his own image. Ask the friends to explain the goal and its importance to you. We have to feel the taste of love: Ask for it.
[95859]
From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Question: So far, our ego twists and turns, trying to find different excuses. How can we change this on our level?

Answer: We can only do one thing: evoke the Light that Reforms. We don’t have any power but for that. So we have to know how to draw this Light.

The Light is evoked only if I want to attain the next closest level to me. How can I take such a step towards the Light so that the Light will influence me, and then make another step so that the Light will influence me again? I need a group for that. To the extent that I can influence the friends and evoke them by some corporeal actions to connection, to love, to corrections and to raise their spirit, I draw the Light upon me.

I don’t need to ask anything from the Light; it will operate and influence me without any request, without any words, only in response to my actions. To that extent, I will advance. Everything happens according to exact laws according to the powers one invests, as it says, “the reward is according to one’s sorrow.”
[95856]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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We need to understand that the more we advance, the more difficult the work becomes. Now when we don’t see a reward, it is easy for us to work. We only have to believe that we will get a reward. The friends tell us that there is a great goal ahead, the Creator’s greatness, for which we should work, and I run to it as if I see how great He is.

Actually I don’t see that; it is the environment that has persuaded me, and I receive energy and fuel from that. I need to keep only one condition in order to work for the right cause: to annul myself before the friends. This means that of all the conditions, I have to keep only one condition: to lower myself. Then the group will begin to impress me and to evoke the greatness of the goal in me, the greatness of the Creator, the reward, to motivate me. This is enough to make me run forward.

It is the easiest condition. After all, when later the Creator’s greatness is really revealed to me, how will I be able to work not for myself as if there is no reward if you know that at the end of the month you will get a million dollars? And it is for the easiest work, like opening the door for someone once a day, for example, and that’s it. How can I get rid of this thought? Now I have to work very hard, against my desire to receive.

The whole way, from one phase to another, to the extent that we advance, we discover what big and important business we are dealing with, the most profitable business. We will have to overcome this notion, as if we have nothing and to detach ourselves from our egoistic desire and hide.

It is very difficult. The first current condition that we have to keep is much easier; it is the simplest of all. So we finally have to keep it and to end this phase! I have to annul myself in order to receive from the environment the greatness of the goal, the greatness of the Creator, and the group, so that it will give me the fuel to advance. Only one condition is required, a small concession of my ego.

Then all these concessions will gradually grow and won’t be just self-annulment, but I will start working with the desire to receive. Each time I will have to agree or disagree, until I draw the Light upon me.

If I don’t manage to annul myself, I have to connect to the Light that Reforms. First I try to subdue myself by myself, but then I see that I cannot do that and that the resistance in me only increases. Then I begin to look for a way to annul myself and only then do I feel the need to draw the Light to help me. Now I already know what I have to look for during the lesson.

We have to write down the principles we will work on, so that this work will be shared by everyone. Everyone has to make efforts and to care about mutual guarantee and the collective fulfilling of the principles.
[95851]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Baal HaSulam, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”: Likewise, all the fixed pictures that we know and use to define materials are inconsistent and do not exist in their own right. Rather, they only dress and undress forms under the influence of conditions such as heat or cold.

During the lesson we think about the force that “draws” the material that actually doesn’t exist. If, while we are reading, we are together, we constantly think about the united group and want to discover the general force among us, then we discover a whole world and live in it in a much clearer, more emotional, and more intensive way than our current life.

This is no fantasy. Evoke these forces. Now you are looking at the friends sleepily, and they look at you in the same way. So evoke these forces together and you will understand that there are worlds between you and that everything depends on your closeness and unity in your mind and your feelings, in your yearning and your inclination, in the desire to feel your inner essence together. Suddenly you will see how the abstract force turns into something real and concrete.

Previously you only paid attention to “coarse” corporeal forces: heat, cold, pressure, etc. But there are much finer and stronger forces in a person than the ones that operate even in the micro-world, on a subatomic level. These fine forces reveal the real material to you. When you enter this field, you discover that it is the beginning and the end of everything, that all of creation is there with its plan. Here, however, there is nothing but the false, artificial, external drawing that is meant to confuse you and to focus you on the correction by false incentives without taking your freewill from you and so as not to turn you into a robot.

This realization should focus us on the main thing, on developing the forces that are between us. They are the strongest “weapon” against evil, against all our problems. Even in our imaginary world subatomic forces are much stronger than the ordinary forces of the macro world. A lot of energy is required in order to cause a collision between the particles in the collider. We, however, enter the field of our personal forces that operate between the friends. This is such great intensity that cannot be measured by using the means we have in this world.

It is a real force. We only have to reach it and to learn how to manage it, since it will not be revealed without an intention to bestow, for the good of others.

Question: Does this mean that there are forces in me that enable me to discover a new reality? How can I find them?

Answer: Start acting, exert yourself, fix the connection with the friends, annul yourself, and by that allow them to connect to you. Start evoking them so that they will impress you with the greatness of the goal. We should make such efforts every day, every moment, because the desire to receive is constantly renewed and constantly demands us to renew our relationships, the whole Ha-Va-Ya-H. This is all our work.

If you evoke and arrange the forces that connect you with the friends as correctly as possible, the force of bestowal and the force of receiving, you will discover that the relationships between you are much more important than the corporeal world.

It will come, since you study and you are expecting the Light that Reforms, and it will influence you. Suddenly you will discover that the relationships between you are the most important thing, and then you will begin to discover a new spiritual material, which is much more real and concrete than what surrounds you today. It will be so powerful, heavy, and real that the temporary, imaginary picture of this world will dissolve on its background.
[95768]
From the 4^th Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12, “The Wisdom of Kabbalah and Philosophy”

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Rabash, “Letter 24”: Regarding your first question about having to stand guard and evoke the love in the hearts of the friends, which you find unbecoming, I actually see that as necessary for you. You know what Baal HaSulam said, that from between man and man one learns how to behave between man and the Creator.

This is so because the upper light is in complete rest, and it is necessary to always evoke the love, “Until the love of our wedding pleases…”

And you must always stand guard, all day and all night, when you feel a state of day or feel a state of night. We say to the Creator, “Yours is the day, and Yours is also the night.” Thus, the night, too, the darkness of night, comes from the Creator to man’s favor, too, as it is written, “Day to day utters speech, and night to night expresses knowledge.” (See the Sulam Commentary, Part 1, Item 103).

It follows that you must evoke the heart of the friends until the flame rises by itself, as our sages said about it, “When you light up the candles.” By that, you will be rewarded with awakening the love of the Creator upon us.”

Several conditions are involved here. First we must “stand on guard to awaken love in the heart of friends.” We must do that all the time, which means regardless of my condition: “all day and all night,” which means, when I feel good and elated and also when I feel bad and am in the dark.

Despite everything, I must evoke love in each of my friends, in any state, “until the flame rises by itself.” This means that I have to make every effort in order to become the fuel for that eternal flame. If I do that, then I am awarded evoking the love for the Creator, or the love of the Creator for us.

Thus we see that this condition is absolutely crucial, like a command that is above time, place, and state, which is an absolute obligation. Accordingly, we have to think about what we do next if without this condition we cannot advance towards the goal. We shouldn’t confuse ourselves that the goal is anything else except for the attainment of the Creator, equivalence of form with Him, since His attitude towards us is love or a desire to bestow, which is the expression of this love.

So we must constantly hold on to this goal: In the morning, a person must plan all his thoughts and actions and in the evening, he must calculate what he has done. And so day after day, all day long. We should aim everything at the one requirement: to try to evoke as much love, or at least an awakening, the importance of the goal, which is the same component as love, until the flame rises by itself. This means that our awakening from below should be so strong that it will summon an awakening from Above, and the merging of these two awakenings, from below and from Above, will create a big flame.

This is not just figurative language. Whoever seriously yearns for the goal must accept this seriously. These conditions are eternal laws.
[95759]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/18/12

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Question: Yesterday a friend who had left the group some time ago suddenly called me and said that he wanted to return. How does such a warm deficiency suddenly awaken in a person? How can we evoke those who have left?

Answer: Can anyone avoid the correction of his soul? Anyone who was with us at some point and left will eventually return. You can see that I am not keeping anyone, not even for a moment. If someone wants to go, then let him go; I wish him all the best. I can say that about anyone, without any regrets, since this is his destiny.

We have to advance according to the laws that we see in nature and which Kabbalists explain to us. These are nature’s laws and there is nothing artificial about them, Kabbalists tell us about man’s psychology and how to use it correctly in order to advance and to reach the top, to rise to our inner psychology, to an inner connection, to enter the world that is behind elementary particles, photons, atoms, all matter.

We have to penetrate this field where the force that sustains all of reality is concealed. All this happens according to exact laws, and there is nothing accidental here.

We have to advance towards this, and as a result of our advancement, a more powerful force field will appear around us. Then it will begin to influence the people who were with us and have left, and also people who have not reached us yet. Their charge, their spark, their “point in the heart,” their spiritual potential is still weak, and so they studied a little and left or haven’t reached us at all yet, but are still on hold.

They are close to us, but our field isn’t strong enough in order to draw them. Our force field is still weak and they are weak in their charge. But when our field grows and becomes stronger, it will draw them inward. Then we will suddenly see how the door opens, and they walk in.

It will undoubtedly happen. It all depends only on our advancement; we don’t have to perform any external actions with regard to them. It all depends solely on us, and we have to perform the correction that is our duty.

So our work is mainly the inner spiritual work. We have to disseminate our materials all over the world in our free time, and for this work we have our Kabalistic factory. This is the external work, but 90% of all our work should be dedicated to our inner work. All our forces and our attention should be aimed at our inner advancement.

We do the external dissemination outside the global group for our advancement, since we depend on the extended society.
[95748]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/17/12, “The Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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From Baal HaSulam’s article “Introduction to The Study of the Ten Sefirot”: …it is the path of Torah, meaning the extensive preparation one must make to prepare the purification of his body before he is actually rewarded with keeping Torah and Mitzvot.

This is talking about the so-called “preparation time.” A person comes to study Kabbalah, but he doesn’t yet understand where he is. He starts with some introductory lectures, then he gets acquainted with a group; he participates in various workshops and common work. If he joins a group, he picks up new values and attitudes from his group whether he wants to or not. This is how one’s preparation period begins; it lasts until one reaches a state called “Lishma,” meaning that the Reforming Light begins to impact him in a way that his desires are altered.

“Completion of the Path of Torah” stands for “asking for a miracle,” meaning enjoying the process of bestowal. One has to wish to rid himself of selfish interests. However, he has to aspire to this condition not because he wants to escape sufferings, but rather to become capable of bestowal. Giving must become one’s only pleasure. When a person rises above his egoistic desires, he is still preoccupied with various problems, but it will be for the sake of caring for others. He regards only this kind of behavior as “life.”

Once while driving with Rabash to a sauna, I asked him about the way to check my level of “Lishma.” He explained it to me as follows: “A friend of yours is returning an envelope with some money that he owed you. There is $1,000 in the envelope. You count the money and see that there is $999. You think it’s not a big deal and decide that most likely your friend simply miscalculated the amount and overlooked that it is short by $1. You think that it’s not even worth mentioning it to him. So, you seal the envelope and close the deal.

This is called “acting within reason.” If you count the money or if you are driven by any sort of calculation, it means that you are ruled by your mind. If you count the money, and still accept your friend’s estimation, (it’s obvious that he wanted to return the whole amount of $1,000), then you accept the envelope without any hesitations whether or not it contains the whole amount you are supposed to receive back. It means that you go beyond your own opinion and above your mind.

It doesn’t matter, how much your friend has returned to you. You accept any amount from him as if it is a thousand dollars; there is no minimum that you would accept. You don’t bring up any conditions, nor do you even think of his possible mistake. It is simply impossible! By accepting $999, you are $1 “above reason.”

If you open the envelope and see that there is only one dollar ($1) enclosed in it, but you still accept it as if it were one thousand dollars ($1,000), it means that your “faith above reason” is $999 worth. It is quite significant…

It is the kind of faith that doesn’t let you get anything in return. You take the Creator’s judgment or your friend’s estimation for granted; thus, you feel as if you received the whole amount back. You feel “as if” your friend returned to you the full amount of $1,000, 100%. This situation fulfills you and empowers you to rise from the level of “Lo Lishma” to “Lishma.”
[95501]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 11/12/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: Let’s say the Creator draws a picture for us of someone incapable of coping with a disease or getting out of some bad state. Is it a manifestation of the group’s weakness? How do we react to these situations?

Answer: We cannot say that it is a consequence of a group’s work. We are tied to the whole world.

The group we are currently in is not a small number of people who used to study a thousand years ago when the world was “sealed” and developed egoistically. For example, the groups of ARI, Ramchal, Rabbi Shimon, or Rabbi Akiva were detached from the rest of the world.

The world, its so-called Babylonian part, has been developing egoistically, whereas Kabbalistic groups advanced independently. They used to discuss within the group only what really pertained to their group.

Today, the world advances in general; it has become global. Now, we move forward not because we deserve it or don’t deserve it, but rather, because we have to move ahead for the sake of correcting the entire world. So, we cannot say that somebody fell or was elevated as a result of the internal group work within one particular group or any other groups; we all are closely interconnected. Today, these problems cannot be resolved this way.
[95513]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: What do we do if the importance of the goal is missing? It happens all the time: People come to class and fall asleep. What methods can a group use to elevate the greatness of the Creator and the importance of the goal?

Answer: It doesn’t matter if someone falls asleep. It happens sometimes! He came to class with his last strength and fell asleep. So what? What can you do about it? How can you awaken him if he is “dead”?

At this moment, he is not a human being, but rather a “plant.” You cannot inspire him at this time. People have the need for sleep, nutrition, and other natural necessities. You cannot do anything about it; you just have to take it into account. You cannot demand anything of your friends unless they sleep at least 5-6 hours and eat a couple of times a day.

Question: This is clear. Although it’s still not clear to me how the group should take care of increasing the importance of the goal.

Answer: The group should take care of this issue on regular basis, but not by promoting tedious slogans that people are bored of hearing. We need to see that people “feel it in their bones.”

How do you do that? Just try! Think of it all the time. If you keep thinking of it, it will make an impact.

This is our work, and we cannot escape it. We are driven by egoism. In this we are opposite to the Creator.

When we advance to the next level, we’ll be dealing with totally different and extremely severe conditions of spiritual work: hatred, difficulties, letdowns.

They all come from the Creator!  We have to agree with them, unless someone is “drilling a hole in the boat,” which may harm our spiritual work. In this case, we have the right to take this person off the boat and expel him from the group.

However, if he falls asleep, you should put a pillow under his head as you would do for your little son.
[95444]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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