If I want to focus on the Creator, I have to feel warmth towards the friend, like a warm “crimson sphere,” an attitude through which I carry on the connection with the friend to a connection with the Creator. After all, I love the friend precisely because the Creator is in him.

The Creator shows me who I am through the created beings in this world in the way He is concealed in it. If I can feel love towards this world, it means that I will feel love towards the Creator, towards the One who created this world and is concealed in it.

The question is: “Why is the Creator concealed in the world and not in the Torah?” Because this world is His concealment, and if I use the Light of the Torah, I first open what the Creator conceals in the world and then I discover Him.

The stages by which we advance towards the friend are the stages by which we advance towards the Creator, and there is nothing but that. All this is called the way of love, according to the final goal and according to what we attain along the way. Even on the lowest level we discover hatred and then love in contrast to it, and so it is time after time, on every level—hatred and love.
[95468]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: The people who prepared the Novosibirsk Convention cannot get together in a good organized physical group. They communicate virtually, watch the lessons every day, each from his own home. This is how it has been for five to seven years. How can we help them unite in a group?

Answer: If they really want to move forward, they need serious obstacles. For this, they should get together. Only by overcoming obstacles, uniting above them, will they begin to move forward; otherwise, all their studies are just theoretical. If they have an opportunity to get together and they do not want this for their own reasons, then they impede themselves. They can be nice children, organize everything perfectly, but for each of them to stay in his place is impossible.

If they were separated by long distance, for example, hundreds of miles, then it is another matter. But they live in the same city and have to meet. They simply must!

Probably, they cherish their egoism and are afraid of losing it. The Creator pushes them on purpose, gives them such nice workouts as a convention.
[95435]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: What is a group as a spiritual unit, spiritual entity? How can I properly interact with the group so that we derive the maximum mutual benefit for spiritual growth?

Answer: A group, as a spiritual entity, is the common desire that seeks likeness with the Creator, the property of bestowal. If people who are in the group act contrary to their egoism, then above it, over their general contradictions, they build the property of love and bestowal that they direct at the Creator.

This is called a group. Constant work should be carried out inside it. If a person joins the group, becomes included into it, dissolves in it, he loses his “I,” and he wants to disappear in the group, to give himself fully to what takes place in it; this means that he is a member of the group.

Our “I,” originally created in us, exists only as a black dot, above which I have to accept all external desires as my own. This is called “love your neighbor.”

To love means to perceive all his desires and properties as my own. I restrict my own desires, do not feel them. I exist only in order to feel everything that exists in others as my own. In reality, all our common desires are my field, my Kli, vessel. I will feel the upper world in it; I want to bestow upon the Creator through it, and in it I will reveal Him. And my dot will remain a black dot. In this way I should perceive myself in relation to the group.
[95353]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: How can we build the correct intention with respect to the group? How is it expressed? How can one understand that he is in the correct intention?

Answer: The intention relative to the group should be very simple: I came to the group to get rid of my egoism, to rise above it, to adhere to the Creator, to reveal my next level, become a human being. This is how I should view the group and do everything that leads me to this goal.

We need to remember this and to adhere to this rule. Moreover, I do not look at the faces, characters, anything; I do not care; they can say whatever they want. First of all, I want to eliminate my “I,” I just want to go along with them. And then, we will move on.

I can actively engage in the work of the group above the fact that I have annulled myself only after I have succeeded in elevating them. Usually people start to enforce everything with their egoism, begin to change everything by force, as it is customary in our world. It cannot happen in the group.
[95350]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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The corrections take place due to the Light that comes from the teacher. The corruptions come from the environment, from the group. But only if a person tries to be incorporated in the environment, taking part in its life and work, studying and being dedicated to the cause, is he sent corrupt desires.

These special corruptions are not only foolish pride or other primitive desires, but corruptions that can draw the Light of correction upon them. This means that a person has to have defects that are totally opposite from the corrected form. He receives all these desires from the environment.

We are speaking about a person who tries to do everything that he can in order to advance spiritually. Then he receives “red light” (redness) from the group, like from a mother’s womb. The group is a mother for him. He receives the “white light” (whiteness) from the father, from the teacher, and this whiteness is his Sefirot, his attributes.

Now a person already has two lines and he has to work in the “middle line.” It isn’t that he can receive it automatically without doing anything. A person has to make efforts in order to be incorporated in this kind of work. Then to the extent that he annuls himself before the group, the teacher, the study, and the Creator, all these factors begin to operate on him and he attains a new level.
[95362]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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Question: Can the lower bestow upon the upper, a student upon a teacher? What stops a student from receiving bestowal from the teacher?

Answer: The student bestows upon the teacher by allowing the teacher to bestow upon him, to give to the lower. The lower bestows upon the upper by his prayer (MAN).

The upper wants to give to the lower. He doesn’t need the lower for any egoistic purposes. The lower can give the upper the chance to give to him. What can a baby give his parents except for the pleasure of taking care of him? After all, it is a pleasure for them.

It is up to the student if the teacher can bestow upon him. The ordinary interruptions are the distancing of the student from the teacher, his pride, his disrespect, and lack of connection. In such a case he cannot be considered a student. There are special rules that determine what it means to be a student of a Kabbalist, and they are explained in TES. The vessel must annul itself and open itself to the filling and agree to remain only in Light of Hassadim.

This is according to the three phases of growth of the lower level with regard to the upper level: Ibur (gestation), Yenika (suckling), and Mochin (mind). This is called being a student—a lower level with regard to an upper level from which it receives fulfillment.

This form hasn’t changed; there is a hierarchy that, once revealed, remains forever. The structure of the general soul doesn’t change, and so everything depends on the student’s efforts. The teacher has to be very patient because the students go through many states until after several years they begin to understand what they have reached.

The moment the student is ready to annul himself, he receives influence from the teacher. But first he has to annul himself before the group, and only then before the teacher. Otherwise he will not enter the spiritual work. One doesn’t work without the other.

He will not be able to receive what he needs only from the group, from the friends, if at the same time he isn’t adhered to the other side, to the right line, to the teacher. There has to be a balance here, the right approach to the middle line, which he determines with the help of the two sources he has—the teacher and the group.

Sometimes the most important thing for a student is the group and sometimes the most important thing for him is the teacher. It depends on a person’s character. But the perfect form of work involves the balance between the two.
[95359]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam 

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From the article by Baal HaSulam, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot,” Item 68: We must know that all the inclinations, tendencies, and properties instilled in a person, with which to serve one’s friends, all these tendencies and natural properties are required for the work of God.

To begin with, they were created and imprinted in man only because of their final role, which is the ultimate purpose of man, as it is written, “he that is banished, be not an outcast from him.” One needs them all so as to complement oneself in the ways of reception of abundance, and to complement the will of God.

We need all the details of the relationships that unfold between friends. We should not retouch, cancel, hide, or suppress anything or prevent it from developing. All aspirations have to awaken, open up, and develop in everyone. Precisely these bad and good inclinations (no matter which one) with respect to the relationship of a person and his friend we afterward will have to turn into the relationship between a person and the Creator.

This is why the one who does not develop his relationship with his friend is not ready to become even one step closer to the Creator.
[95392]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/13/12, “Introduction to the Study of the Ten Sefirot”

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Question: The group’s responsibility is to constantly take care of the greatness of the Creator and the importance of the goal. From practice, we see that when we are experiencing a general ascent, for example, the preparation for a convention, then this work is done enthusiastically; everyone is ready, everyone is agreement, and everything is fine. But as soon as egoism grows, then everyone is weighed down with excuses, important things, just not to engage in it. How can we overcome this?

Answer: Each lesson should be the next step. If I had not felt this, I would not have the strength to come to the lesson every day.

Every day I have to see renewed people, that is, the same faces but different in content; they could be in descent, in ascent, but different.

These are not just faces, but a huge mass of people. After all, I do not remember anyone’s face, I do not remember names because I feel only their qualitative changes. I feel those who are on-screen and off screen, those who are present, together, with us at the lesson: There are hundreds of thousands of people.

Recently, we conducted a survey in Israel of who watches our TV channel. We got incredible figures. It turned out that hundreds of thousands of people watch us. And I feel all this mass. But it must change, and this brings me to a state of readiness.
[95344]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: Why does Baal HaSulam say that a person is thrown from the friends to the teacher and back again like a “slingshot” and by that the right vessel for receiving the Light is built in him?

Answer: A person receives wholeness from the teacher and through the group he discovers his evil. Despite his reluctance, he is incorporated in the group and makes great efforts to become part of the environment and to connect with the friends.

Thanks to that, in response to all his efforts, he discovers aversion, hate, and anger. This is how his egoistic desire is revealed in him; it isn’t his friends that he sees, but himself in the friends, as if in a mirror.

When all these negative feelings are revealed, the question is to what extent he acknowledges that this evil is revealed in him and not in the friends. At the same time he comes to his teacher, to the lesson, and receives treatment from the teacher, a correction.

If he has the right connection with the Rav and with the study, he has to come out white. As all the evil that he felt towards the friends takes on an opposite form, and he understands that it is in his favor. Instead of cursing he now gives thanks for it. Instead of feeling the evil in the friends, he feels good; instead of feeling good and proud about himself, he now feels bad. This means that everything turns upside down.

The opposite definitions that he now understands and feels in his attributes compared to the friends is called “a slingshot,” reverse, a trigger.
[95282]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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Question: How does the system of: person – group – teacher work? What is the function of each component in this formula?

Answer: The role of the teacher is to correct the student, and the role of the environment is to evoke the egoistic desire in him, not for the corporeal filling but rather for the spiritual filling.

There are two systems: the system of the uncorrected desires, the left line and the system of corrections, the right line. (Although it is clear that everything is run from above and designated for correction).

The teacher is on a higher level since he passes the Light downward to the students and for him the good and the evil come from one source. With regard to the student, which means on the lower level, the good and the evil are perceived as coming from two different sources, a good one and an evil one.

The teacher’s goal is to pass the Light to the student by the help of the study and the Creator, so that it will correct him and the good and evil will become one whole for him. This means that on his current level, the student will reach a feeling that “There is none else besides Him, the good and the benevolent.” Thus he ends the current level and goes on to the next level, and so he rises time after time.

It turns out that all the components have to be divided into two parts: the right line and the left line. And who are you? You have to try and reach the middle line, the upper level, in which there is no good or evil and where there aren’t many factors, but rather, everything converges into one: the group, the study, and the teacher—everything belongs to the Creator, and there is none else besides Him.
[95279]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/12/12, Writings of Baal HaSulam

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