Question: How is it possible after the convention to continue feeling that I have no individual abilities, but only the abilities of the group?

Answer: Before you didn’t have any individual abilities either, and you were part of the group, but now it is clearer, and accordingly more is demanded of you. The more that is revealed to you, the more you are demanded to participate, mentally, emotionally, and actively in overcoming.

It is very clear that by very small efforts, we have already discovered that within our collective vessel an illumination is emerging. The problem is that we attained this by physical connection between us and not by spiritual connection. In the meantime it is a very big deficiency.

In addition, it happens thanks to the fact that I am incorporated in the group using the force to connect with them. This means that there is still al lot of work that has to be done on the part of our group in order to reach a true inner connection among the friends. Then the Light that is equal to this connection will arrive.

In the meantime it is lacking within the group and among the groups. We have to connect more strongly with one another. I think that this convention has shown everyone that we are closer to one another than we thought. All the groups felt close and people understood that we have no choice but either to advance toward an even greater connection or leave.

We will soon see how this happens: There will be people who will come gladly and there will be those who will leave cursing. This is how the clarification is done.

We now have to fulfill what we felt in the convention. In order to fulfill that, a person needs constant self-control with regard to his attitude towards the world that is managed by the Creator. Am I aware of the fact that I am in a world that is managed by the Creator? Do I perceive the world as a place where by focusing on the fact that everything is done by the Creator I will eventually find the Creator in this world?

World (Olam – also means concealment in Hebrew) is concealment on the one hand and the revelation of the Creator on the other hand. The world is concealed because I don’t reveal the Creator. But because I intend to reveal Him, to identify with Him, and to receive everything that happens as the absolute good and benevolent and there is none else besides Him, then by that I accept this concealment, and then the concealment of the world becomes a revelation.

This is all I have to say about this. Don’t expect anything beyond this and don’t think that as we advance I will have new words. But the same words will be clearer to you. If someone else begins to read, it would mean nothing to him, just like people who read the Torah and understand it literally. These are ordinary words, since in spirituality there are no words.
Besides, it is forbidden to reveal more than is allowed. We have to understand that the teacher is an educator who has to do his job.
[95274]
From the 1^st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, “Questions and Answers Regarding Novosibirsk Convention”

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Rabash, Shlavei Sulam (The Rungs of the Ladder), (1984/85), Article 13: “Mighty Rock Of My Salvation”: …Wherever he walks, he is eagerly searching for a place where perhaps someone will be able to give him the power to bestow.

Question: How do I find this power?

Answer: Seek the means that will help you to come to bestowal.

When a person begins his work, discerning the Creator’s action over him, he continuously remains in the state of search and helplessness: “How do I find the Creator? How do I draw Him close to me? How do I move and excite my affection, how do I use my mind to comprehend Him? Where do I reveal His action? What veil conceals it? How do I ‘turn’ myself in order to highlight His connection—even if it is negative, only to manifest it?”

A person starts changing his facets and properties desiring to unveil the Creator thereby. Such is the nature of our work. It isn’t simple; it requires enormous energy; it burns tons of “calories” and demands great effort in a tireless “chase after the Shechina.” Gradually, a person gains experience on this path and learns to overrule himself. This is the key.

And the Creator, based on one’s previous years and one’s life in the group, prepares all sorts of surprises for him. One’s personal errors start surfacing, or somebody makes him angry, or he feels insulted and feels the urge to put the offenders in their place in the heat of the moment, but suddenly stops and thinks: “Aren’t I supposed to work on myself by the principle ‘There is none else besides Him’?” But how? I am on the warpath now, and I am expected to remember Him?

Question: Rabash says that one has to find a group where everyone “craves the power of bestowal.” What does it mean?

Answer: In the group, we don’t receive normal incentives: money or respect. After all, the friends are getting pushed by the upper force, and gradually they assume a spiritual path. Then this force starts receding so that they can draw energy from spirituality on their own, without blows from behind.

Question: How do I draw strength from the spiritual so I advance not for the sake of honor and other egoistic rewards?

Answer: You can draw strength only from unity; otherwise, it won’t be spiritual growth. I strive to link in, to sink into the group, so I can be impressed by the friends. I don’t collect their strength for myself, but I do get impressed and respond to their giving, their love, and their spirit. Seeing them for the first time, I feel sorry I looked; after all, now I will suffer because I don’t participate in what they do. I wish they wouldn’t awaken brotherly love—I would be more at ease, would feel better, be more content. But then I tell myself: “Wait a minute, but this is exactly where you can gain strength, impressions; it can shake you up and ignite! So instead, let them be exalted in my eyes and inspire me to follow them.”

In the end, the group, the teacher, the Creator, and the Kabbalists’ books—these are the only positive factors I have to advance. And all the friends must link together as one; none of them is supposed to be lesser than the others. Only as equals can we move toward the goal.
[95184]
From the 2^nd part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12, Writings of Rabash

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Question: When we participate in the morning lessons and workshops should we appeal to the Creator through the group?

Answer: Only through the group! There cannot be any personal appeal to the Creator. All the Shamati articles were written for a person who is engaged in the spiritual work within a group. By the way, there is nothing mentioned in these articles that one has to direct oneself to the Creator through the group because it is a natural and obvious thing.

If I say that I look at the Creator, it means that there is a group in front of me. Otherwise, I do not see Him.
[95266]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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We constantly need to focus on the fact that “There is none else besides Him—only on this topic as there is nothing else except it. All the other topics are needed to support it to identify different individual states.

Moreover, I delve into this topic because the Creator produces all my feelings in me. Now, He is talking to me through my teacher, who is His conduit, and nothing more. Everything around me is a manifestation of the Creator in me; I myself am His derivative and have to respond to what happens according to this.

The more a person understands and knows the uniqueness of this, not disconnecting from the friends, from the world, or from anything, then the more he will try to feel it in reality.

This is the only force of nature that is manifested to us like that. Every day, we increasingly reveal its integrality, interconnection. Nature is integral, and we should not interfere with it. On the contrary, we must adapt ourselves to it. That is why Kabbalah says that we have to act in the external world: to provide everyone with normal, reasonable consumption, in general, to care about that. Everything else is just seeking unity, and through unity to the One.

Thus, any changes that you would like to see, you can only come to through this topic of the uniqueness of the Creator. It determines everything: why we should be united, why we should react to something in this way and not otherwise, etc. You will always come to the correct answer through it.
[95260]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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Baal HaSulam, Letter 20: You are carved … on my heart, all day and all night and like incinerators of thirst after your goodness and your wholeness, and the Creator knows what exertion and powers I have given on your behalf, and you are sure that it will not be in vain and God’s word will be eternal.

From this day onwards we will grow stronger in the Torah and the Mitzvot (commandments), “like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load” to raise Divinity from the dust, and the sins will become merits, since His honor will fill the land. And thank God, I am very sure that our salvation is soon to be revealed, and we will be rewarded to worship the Creator together, in expansion and God willing, we will succeed.

Baal HaSulam writes about his investment in his students and about his helping them. However, in the spiritual world, in contrast to the corporeal world, the lower has to make efforts so that the upper can help him.

In the corporeal world, a baby is naturally attached to his mother first by the umbilical cord in the womb and then to her breast, to her body, and so he receives her treatment. Nature forces him to annul himself this way. He doesn’t make any efforts on his part. On the contrary, he feels that his mother is the source of his life, and he is inclined to adhere to her.

However, in the spiritual work, we have to do this action against our ego, toward the group, the teacher, and the Creator. Only to the extent that we annul ourselves will we receive nourishment from them, either through what we call a “spiritual umbilical cord” or through the spiritual breast of the upper Partzuf, through the Surrounding Light and the Inner Light.

So, if a teacher writes that the students are carved … on my heart all day and all night, it means that they also have made a great deal of work in order to reach such a mutual connection.

What exertion and powers I have given on your behalf, this is possible only if the students allowed the teacher to bestow upon them. If a baby refuses to eat, how is it possible to force him? Here, it is a matter of his own freewill.

First, his freewill is only in annulling himself. Then, it is also in agreeing to accept the bestowal from the upper, which is always in contrast to one’s own mind and feelings. It is a very big problem. Even to just annul yourself and to accept everything as Hassadism isn’t easy. The embryo is in the waters of Hesed, but it isn’t simple to receive everything as Hassadim in total self-annulment.

So, a student should begin to accept actions that are opposite to his feelings and his mind, and to accept them in order to see the upper’s grace in the greatest sufferings, just like Rabbi Akiva in his painful death.

This isn’t simple at all, and we have to prepare ourselves for that. The main thing is to want that our attitude to what is happening with us will change. We are required to ask and to beg, to pray, so that we will be able to justify everything that happens, and to receive the Creator’s actions upon us with love and to ask for help in order to adhere to the group, to the teacher, and to the Creator so that love will cover all our sins.

This work is called like an ox to the burden and a donkey to the load. We must constantly feel that There is none else besides Him, and the vessel for this feeling is our connection and love. This is why it is called the great rule of the Torah.
[95176]
From the Preparation to the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 12/11/12

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Question: How do I check the efforts in the group, and whether they should be checked at all? It turns out that my own sensations deceive me, don’t they?

Answer: It does not matter. We still have to take these feelings, take our minds, and work with them, and again in duality! This is our problem.

On the one hand, friends appear in my eyes so that I would have each of them altered or replaced, myself too.

And, on the other hand, everything comes from the Creator; He deliberately gives us the state from which we would come to the conclusion that this is perfect because it stems from Him. And from the state of duality, confusion, not understanding, and conflict, we suddenly begin to identify Him.

We get a substrate, the basis on which we can feel it. The foundation should be different, strewn with all sorts of thorns. It is then, when we have plenty of feelings, properties, various opposite definitions. And then He is felt. Otherwise, we cannot feel the Light.

Despite the fact that we are in it, we still have no contrast between the “I” and He. That is what we are building, a new sense organ.

Question: That is, I check everything both individually and from the state of the group?

Answer: Yes. We must constantly be in two states and analyze what is happening from two points of the observer.
[95162]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 3

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Question: You said that we have to take our point in the heart outward. I do not understand what that means. If the point is in me, then how can I take it out? I feel contentment, sense this fulfillment, and examine it as an observer. Is this point somehow disconnected from me?

Answer: This is a feeling between you and the other person that is as a calm, warm, really crimson luminous point. It is not even a point, but a small ball between you and him.

It does not matter whether it is a man or a woman, you do not notice. It has nothing to do with sex or a person’s appearance, with anything external. This point just appears, and you look not at this person, but at this small ball, which has appeared between you. And you work for it. It is the most important thing for you.

This ball is a person’s desires, his aspirations. You suddenly start to feel them, and you suddenly start to work for them. You want this ball to grow. It attracts you, fascinates you like a fireball, and you work for it.

Question: But if it does not fascinate me, does it mean that it is me who feels contentment?

Answer: But this is not you inside yourself, you are in this ball, you are in this emerging feeling of love for the other. You are still standing like an observer and still are based on you egoism, but you seek this state. It is already yours; it lives in you.

Try it!
[95154]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/8/12, Lesson 4

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Question: What is the correction of the world?

Answer: We are on the highest level of a general system because we yearn to be above ourselves. The previous lives have made us the way we are.

There are different illuminations in the world, and this whole system is mutually connected. But the signal comes from above. The Light goes through us to the world and then spreads everywhere. This is called the “correction of the world.”

I don’t correct anyone. If we correct ourselves, then the Light is transferred through us to all the other parts of the world. Most people cannot draw the Light; they cannot correct themselves; they don’t understand; they don’t know; they lack the desires. Try to talk to them about the meaning of life and what does it mean to them. It isn’t good or bad, since in the meantime they have no such desire. What is more, these people make up 99% of the world population, and it is up to us to correct them that way.

On the other hand, Kabbalists speak about our obligation to pass the wisdom of Kabbalah on to them, so that they will feel that there is hope and that there is an ideology of correction, that there are levels the world has to go through in order to be corrected, and that we can ease this path for them and make it simple and quick. They have to know a little about it, only generally. The actual correction takes place under our internal influence on them, since we are all connected in one network.
[95088]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Question: How do we work in the group to focus our intention and to achieve the right desire to ascend?

Answer: We have to imagine the ascent from our world to the world of Ein Sof (Infinity) as something that is attainable now, at this very moment. We constantly play it in the group and in the workshops. We constantly imagine it as the desirable state. I want to be constantly included in it; this is my goal in every movement I make. Only if we imagine this goal do we summon upon ourselves the good and beneficial influence of the Surrounding Light from it.

It is a physical law. To the extent that I yearn, I summon the force of the Light upon myself, and it operates and influences me and corrects me by drawing me to a new state.

Question: So does this means that we have to see our friends as great, even if I don’t agree with them and don’t feel that they really are so?

Answer: Of course! What does agreeing or not agreeing have to do with it? Who am I? I am a small, worthless, uneducated person, who has no attainment of the spiritual world. I criticize my friends because I feel comfortable with that, out of my egoistic attributes. It seems to me that they are all wrong and that they are all bad. Of course, I mustn’t accept what I see and hear as the way they really are.

On the contrary, I have to understand that my ego is between me and my group. I see them through the ego and receive everything from them through it.

This means that the questions of who they are and what I receive from them have no solution until I annul my ego.

But when I annul it, I will be able to see what is before me. Then I will see that it is the Creator! Not the friends, not the group, but the Creator! I will see a totally perfect state.

Now, when I am detached from them, inside my ego, when I am in a kind of an egoistic cocoon, how can I judge anyone?
[95085]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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Question: You said that the soul is altruism, that is, the property that is available to few people. When we are engaged in correction and raise the world with us, do we share with the world the soul that we have earned or do we grow the world soul with the Light of correction that comes down to us?

Answer: We do not create anything new. We have very small animalistic, selfish desires, and the Light with which we can manipulate if we become like it. We draw the influence of the Light on ourselves, and the Light causes even greater egoistic desires in our egoistic desires, which, each time, we are correcting.

Let’s suppose that the desire to receive is small, like a dot, with a minimum capacity equal to one. The Light, the property of bestowal, exists in it.

The Light enters this desire: The property of bestowal pumps this dot with its desire to bestow, with warmth, love, compassion, and tenderness. This dot swells, and a huge desire emerges in it. And then the power of Malchut is equal to, say, a thousand. Why did it get such a tremendous power of desire to receive? It’s because the Light filled it in that way.

We say that there is Aviut (the thickness of desire) in the Light. What does it mean? I offered you a cake, gave you some candy, handed you a pillow, and suggested something warm to you. I pumped my attitude into you so that you begin to desire all this. My good attitude toward you is turned into a desire, and then if you do not get it from me, you begin to suffer. Thus, I cultivate a desire in you. This is what the Light does to us similar to what we do with a spoiled child. Thus, It builds us during the descent from above downward.

Then during the ascent from the bottom upward, It does the opposite, but almost the same. It affects our egoism, irritating it, as if crushes it. Under the influence of the Light, the ego swells and becomes bigger and bigger. Thus, we grow.

The egoistic and altruistic components grow in parallel, and at every state, in every world, they are opposite and have to complement each other until we reach the level of infinity.

The Light does everything; it increasingly develops negative desires in us. When you start to study, you have small desires. And tomorrow, you begin to hate others, and then something else, etc. And so it is with the Creator: Today you are afraid to say anything against Him, tomorrow you will hate Him, and the day after tomorrow, you will yell at Him. The time will come; you will grow up and will find out that this is so.
[95093]
From the Novosibirsk Convention 12/7/12, Lesson 2

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